No online sales to Arkansas?

[AndriaD]

I find that scenario extremely unrealistic.

And here is why.

From a legal point of view it is well established that only the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT can regulate interstate commerce. Individual states do NOT have the right or authority to impose taxes, restrictions, fines, or other penalties on out of state vendors or out of state consumers. States can say what they want in laws, they can make whatever threats they like, but if they actively tried to pursue an out of state vendor for legal action the law would be quickly thrown out by federal courts.

This goes WAY beyond any silly state law, this falls directly under the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. States do not have the legal authority to reach beyond their own borders and regulate interstate trade. They can only regulate what happens within their borders.

Which is why you don't see State A trying to impose sales tax on a business in State B.

This exactly. And considering that so far the feds haven't yet even "deemed" vapor products as "tobacco products", I think a state's passing a law to that effect is completely unlawful. "Tobacco products" are regulated at the FED level, not state level, so it's not up to a state to declare something a tobacco product, if the feds haven't (yet) done so.

Andria

 

[skoony]

Wrong.
I can't list the thousands of examples on this site because TOU doesn't allow it.
Customs is a joke, and anyone who has ever ordered anything from overseas knows this.

Customs couldn't look in every Fasttech package, much less everything coming in from every vendor is physically impossible.

Even now many overseas companies list contents as a gift to avoid customs costs.
One in a thousand gets popped.

Not to mention the shadiness involved at the docks.

they could simply ban anything from fastech by saying they
are smuggling contraband.
believe me if they decide tomorrow its over, it
will be over. a trickle might get through but they
could easily eliminate 90% with no real problem.
regards
mike

 

[crxess]

I never was a single issue voter but I'm rapidly becoming one *sigh*

Taking notes and watching politicians very carefully.

This really isn't even about Single issue. We are simply covering one.
This is about Government growing so bold as to dictate every aspect of life for the Majority on a whim by the request of a minority of individuals powerful enough to impose their desires.

It is sad that in my lifetime I have watched the American People becoming little more than Drones.

I started Life in a family with a working Father - Navy - and a stay at home Mother.
My wife and I have had to work all our lives to raise our 4 children.
Those children are so messed up just trying to survive life they have little to no connection to their own children and the Family Model has now been irreversibly Broken.
ALL of this in the name of a Better life in America.......................yea

* I Love this country. It's most of the people I just don't understand.*

 

[mauricem00]

no, because the made all vapor product tobacco products so now they fall under tobacco laws.

ever hear of the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. constitution? there is no way for a state to get around that law

 

[Robert Cromwell]

ever hear of the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. constitution? there is no way for a state to get around that law

Sure there is, they just ignore it like they have ever since the internet became a shopping place.

 

[mauricem00]

they could simply ban anything from fastech by saying they
are smuggling contraband.
believe me if they decide tomorrow its over, it
will be over. a trickle might get through but they
could easily eliminate 90% with no real problem.
regards
mike

I do not think the state wants to fight the Chinese government in world court. they would lose and likely face heavy sanctions

 

[jseah]

Wrong.
I can't list the thousands of examples on this site because TOU doesn't allow it.
Customs is a joke, and anyone who has ever ordered anything from overseas knows this.

Customs couldn't look in every Fasttech package, much less everything coming in from every vendor is physically impossible.

Even now many overseas companies list contents as a gift to avoid customs costs.
One in a thousand gets popped.

Not to mention the shadiness involved at the docks.

Also, when you get a shipment from Fasttech, the package does not come from "Fasttech". The package shows a Chinese individual's name as the sender. Are they going to stop and open every package coming from China that looks like it is coming from an individual?

 

[YoursTruli]

If no one challenges this bill/law in a court of law it will go forward and stand "as is" so how likely is it that someone is going to challenge this, given the track record so far I say not very likely... but I pray I am wrong.

 

[Completely Average]

Well I won't say they aren't trying. States are loosing a lot of tax dollars from internet sales in general. Most people think that they do not have to pay sales tax if they buy online. That is not true. They have been trying for years to address that issue even by having the feds step in. What a mess it will be.

This is all a $ thing. Now I guess I get to root against the Razorbacks.

But that is precisely my point.

The states cannot do it. They MUST get the Federal Government to do it. The Constitution forbids the states from trying to regulate or tax interstate commerce. As long as Federal Law allows it, it's allowed.

 

[Bad Ninja]

they could simply ban anything from fastech by saying they
are smuggling contraband.
believe me if they decide tomorrow its over, it
will be over. a trickle might get through but they
could easily eliminate 90% with no real problem.
regards
mike

Vape gear is about 1% of their overall sales. They ship millions of packages to the US daily, most are not vape related. That's just fasttech.
There would be billions of international packages to search.

One state is gonna pay to do all that?
It's a waste of time and money.
Our tax money.

The only real answer is voting them out of office.

 

[mauricem00]

Sure there is, they just ignore it like they have ever since the internet became a shopping place.

no one has found a way to effectively control the internet. even in countries like china and Lebanon where it is highly censored people find a way around those controls

 

[Completely Average]

If no one challenges this bill/law in a court of law it will go forward and stand "as is" so how likely is it that someone is going to challenge this, given the track record so far I say not very likely... but I pray I am wrong.

No one will challenge it as long as Arkansas doesn't try to enforce it against any out of state vendors. The moment they try to enforce it against an out of state vendor it's a fast and easy loss in court. As long as they limit their enforcement to in-state only then their law can and will stand.

 

[stevegmu]

If the government wanted to put a stranglehold on online sales, all they would have to do is have USPS list e-nic as a hazardous substance...

 

[jseah]

Well I won't say they aren't trying. States are loosing a lot of tax dollars from internet sales in general. Most people think that they do not have to pay sales tax if they buy online. That is not true. They have been trying for years to address that issue even by having the feds step in. What a mess it will be.

This is all a $ thing. Now I guess I get to root against the Razorbacks.

Technically if the buyer is not charged sales tax at the point of purchase, they are responsible for paying use tax to their home state. Of course, no one actually voluntarily reports their out of state purchases to their home state and voluntarily pay up use tax. That's why states now have started adding use tax to their income tax returns (NY and California are two states that come to mind). In NY, the taxpayer has the option of disclosing their total out of state purchases and paying the use tax on that, or using their state taxable income, pay a use tax based on that. Of course the taxpayer can also actively report that they had zero out of state purchases (by simply entering a zero on the tax return) and not having to pay any use tax, bearing in mind that reporting zero on your tax return when it is not zero is felony tax fraud.

 

[jseah]

Grab a po box in the closest state. Problem solved.

The one wrinkle that I see with this is you would also have to change your credit/debit/Paypal billing address to that P.O. box as well. Otherwise you will still have that audit trail linking the purchaser back to Arkansas.

 

[YoursTruli]

Commerce Clause Limitations on State Regulation
The Commerce Clause is a grant of power to Congress, not an express limitation on the power of the states to regulate the economy. At least four possible interpretations of the Commerce Clause have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that the Clause gives Congress the exclusive power to regulate commerce. Under this interpretation, states are divested of all power to regulate interstate commerce. Second, it has been suggested that the Clause gives Congress and the states concurrent power to regulate commerce. Under this view, state regulation of commerce is invalid only when it is preempted by federal law. Third, it has been suggested that the Clause assumes that Congress and the states each have their own mutually exclusive zones of regulatory power. Under this interpretation, it becomes the job of the courts to determine whether one sovereign has invaded the exclusive regulatory zone of the other. Finally, it has been suggested that the Clause by its own force divests states of the power to regulate commerce in certain ways, but the states and Congress retain concurrent power to regulate commerce in many other ways. This fourth interpretation, a complicated hybrid of two others, turns out to be the approach taken by the Court in its decisions interpreting the Commerce Clause.

 

[BostonJim]

I gave up reading after the 2nd page

1) To the person complaining about Republicans, way more Democrats are on the ban it bandwagon than Republicans, New Jersey, New York, California, Indiana, just to name a few.

2) Mail boxes ect. or other such mail dumps provide a safe alternative to mailing stuff to customers than from your own place of business. Or you could just go to the post office in person and not have a vape shop originating shipment. This will make the state require a warrant to inspect the package. Also that pesky interstate commerce federal law stuff comes into play

3) Vapors are costing the state millions of dollars a day, this is just an attempt to recoup some of that money.

 

[mcol]

Just throwing this out there, but in Indiana the Senators (mostly
democrat) passed their bills(s) and the Governor (republican) signed
it into law. This is way more than one political party versus another.
Here is how the Senators in Indiana voted, just fyi.

 

[skoony]

Vape gear is about 1% of their overall sales. They ship millions of packages to the US daily, most are not vape related. That's just fasttech.
There would be billions of international packages to search.

One state is gonna pay to do all that?
It's a waste of time and money.
Our tax money.

The only real answer is voting them out of office.

as of right now Indiana and Arkansas are on board.
there's no reason to believers more won´t follow.
more states,lower cost. if you understand tracking
software one realizes it's just a giant data base.
what would be in that data base? known vendors
and receivers and, product descriptions.
anyone that works on data base can easily collate
the data to obtain all sorts of things.
regards
mike

 

[sjrily]

Truth is, RJ provide this bill to Arkansas, just as they provided similar bills to other states around the country. Lawmakers tweak were and there, having no idea what they're tweaking, then you end up with something that makes little sense and contradicts itself repeatedly. We spent days and hours looking at the plain language, as did others in the state, and were still left with a mess. We talked with several lawmakers and officials, before and after this passed, and they all had a different take. One senator even picked up the phone to call his friend, one of the state's tobacco lobbyist, and asked what this was about. He was told "there's a concern because right now it's legal to sell this stuff to anyone, any age." I told the senator Arkansas passed a law two years ago making it illegal to sell to minors.

If any Arkansans (or anybody else) is interested, I uploaded a marked-up doc of the bill we did last spring. The first notation is on page 4. The text that originally accompanied the doc is:

SB978 Notated for Discussion, Analysis: This is NOT an official, definitive or authoritative document in any way (that's left to judges, who may even disagree among themselves). It's intended only to encourage discussion, ideas and maybe a course of action. The PDF is notated with "sticky" notes using "plain meaning rule" to try to decode or clarify some of the more concerning clauses. If there's an interest, we can upload the word doc to Google docs for shared editing or comments.

A document this complex takes time to analyze, and we shouldn't expect to understanding it in one or two readings - or only one or two sets of eyes or one authority. We'll update the doc as we get more professional input, but it's IMPORTANT the industry approach this as a collective whole to help the INDUSTRY take action and move forward. Not all vapor businesses are the same. One may be fine with a particular set of restrictions while another may have to close their doors.

Legislatures are passing laws on an industry that makes no sense to them and as a result, the regulation makes no sense, is ambiguous or even contradictory - to it's own language and to what lawmakers may have stated or intended. Of the three primary methods used to interpret law - textual, historical and functional, textual is always first and foremost. Since there is no history yet, and the function is ulterior, or ambiguous at best, we're left with the text. Yes, we have a video of the verbal "summary" of the bill, but the video will not be part of Arkansas code.​

For the record, wholesalers and manufacturers CAN sell to end consumers PROVIDED they obtain a Retailer's permit. They CANNOT sale to end consumers via their wholesale permit. We originally were applying for all three permits, but were told to only get a manufacturer and a retail (manufacturer's permit allows us to sell wholesale, retail permit allows us to sell direct to end consumer).

And this IS a violation of the federal commerce clause, but attorneys we've talked with basically say "forget it." In Arkansas at least (this will get interesting when federal laws trump state laws), these are vapor products falling under ATC regulation along side tobacco products. All existing state laws regulating tobacco do not automatically apply to vapor products. It's wrong to assume that laws preventing online cigarette sales automatically extend to vapor products. At least for the time being...