ROLL-YOUR-OWN CIGARETTE MACHINES UNDER SCRUTINY FOR TAXATION

(07/20/2011)

The West Virginia Department of Administration has alerted Attorney General Darrell McGraw to an "apparently new phenomena" of roll-your-own cigarette machines in tobacco stores in the Mountain State. Apparently the machines are a refined, higher-tech version of old-time rolling machines, or the State of West Virginia is just catching up. The taxation alert said a customer can purchase bulk tobacco and rolling papers, and place them into a hand-cranked machine that takes the raw materials and turns them into cigarettes. "Purchasing cigarettes in this manner allows the customer to circumvent state cigarette tax," Administration Secretary Robert Ferguson said. "Please be advised that not only are we are of this issue, but also we have been engaged in active litigation with respect thereto for the past six months," according to Managing Deputy Attorney General Barbara Allen. The price of the roll-your-own cigarettes, according to the Charleston Gazette, is about half of what a brand-name pack of cigarettes cost. That's because of the state's 55-cent tax on cigarette packs.

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