미국에서 담배에 부과되는 세금을 인상하니 담배 밀수가 급증하고 있다는 2012년 11월 24일자
[이코노미스트] 기사입니다.
미국은 주마다 세제가 다른 연방국가인데요… 어느 한 주에서 싸게 팔리는 물건을 대량으로
사들여 다른 주로 몰래 갖다 파는 밀수가 성행하고 있습니다.
밀수 상인들은 담배에 붙는 세금이 미국에서 두 번째로 싼(1갑에 $0.3) 버지니아에서
제일 비싼(1갑에 $4.35) 뉴욕 주로 부지런히 담배를 나르고 있다고 합니다.
밀수로 인해 정부가 걷지 못한 세금이 한 해에 100억 달러로 추산된다고 합니다.
담배 밀수가 적발됐을 때 받는 처벌은 마약 밀수하다에 비하면 약한 형량이기 때문에
밀수가 더 많다고 합니다. 마약 밀수는 최대 무기징역형을 받지만, 담배 밀수는 징역 5년이
최대 형량으로 상대적으로 가벼운 편(?)이지요.
미국의 27개 주는 지난 2007년부터재정 적자를 매우거나 치솟는 건강보험료를 충당하기
위해 담배에 붙는 세금을 올리기 시작했는데요… 이러한 세금 차이를 노린 밀수가 성행하고
있습니다. 뉴저지에서는 1갑에 세금이 $2.7 붙는데요… 뉴저지주에서 유통되는 담배의
40%가 불법 밀수 담배라는 통계가 있을 정도라고 합니다.
버지니아 주는 다른 주에서 판매하기 위한 목적으로 5천 개비(250 보루) 이상 담배를
사거나 소지하는 행위를 금지한다고 밝혔다고 합니다.
밀수 상인들은 대형 밴을 주로 이용하는데, 대형밴에는 1만 보루 이상 담배를 실을 수
있다고 합니다.
원문은 아래를 참조하세요.
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Cigarette-smuggling
The urge to smurf
When government gets greedy, some people turn to crime
Nov 24th 2012 | RICHMOND | from the print edition
Baccy for the clerk THE busy interstate highway that zips through Richmond, Virginia, and up to the crowded cities of the north-east has long been a conduit for handguns bought wholesale in Virginia and sold to drug-dealers in New York. Now I-95 is siphoning northwards another form of contraband: black-market cigarettes.
Because Virginia’s tobacco tax is the second-lowest in America, gangsters buy cigarettes there in bulk and sell them at enormous profit in New York and other high-tax states. At a minimum, they pocket a big chunk of the difference between what Virginia adds in tax—30 cents a packet—and the higher rates imposed elsewhere. New York’s tax, at $4.35 a packet, is the highest in the country.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that sales of illegal cigarettes cost government—local, state and federal—nearly $10 billion a year. For the smugglers, profits are better than those from cocaine, heroin, marijuana and guns, according to a report in September by the Virginia State Crime Commission. Moreover, the penalty for doing it—a maximum of five years in jail, under federal law—is considerably lighter than for selling drugs. If the smugglers were trafficking in heroin, they would face life in prison.
The growth of the cigarette-resale racket, known to police as “smurfing”, appears tied to a growing government appetite for cash. Since 2007 at least 27 states have raised their cigarette taxes, often to erase deficits or to cover sharp increases in health-care costs. This spurs the smugglers on. In New Jersey, where a packet of cigarettes carries a tax of $2.70, about 40% of all cigarettes are smuggled in from other states, according to the New Jersey Treasury Department. Maryland, Virginia’s neighbour to the north, reported a fourfold increase in seizures of illegal cigarettes between 2010 and 2012, though one official described the haul as the tip of the iceberg.
Virginia, a big tobacco state since colonial times, has recently declared it illegal to buy and possess, with intent to sell elsewhere, more than 5,000 cigarettes. That may sound a lot, but they are easy to miss. Smugglers can niftily get 600 cartons (that is, ten packs of 20 cigarettes) into a car, and 12,000 into a large van. When gun-running was at its peak, I-95 was known as the “iron highway”. Now it is the new Tobacco Road.
