The Shuster Project

Tobacco Industry Fraud & False Claims Issues

Click HERE To Read Our Letter Sent to Senator Kerry's Presidential Campaign

 To The Honorable Commissioner of Taxation & Finance, Arthur J. Roth,

     New York State, in addition to all of the other 49 states that affix any state Sales Tax to the purchase of packages and/or cartons of cigarettes, loses upwards of tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year through the fraudulent and illegal pricing schemes of the tobacco companies at the retail level.

     It has been brought to my attention by my staff that recently you have been aggressively addressing the issues of state Sales Tax losses and state Sales Tax abuses via Internet purchases of tobacco products and via "tax-free" purchases on Indian Reservation lands.

     You are, however, completely unaware of New York State Sales Tax revenue losses specifically due to fraudulent tobacco company "in-store" pricing schemes.

     These schemes deliberately defraud the precise, correct and legitimate collection of the exact amount of state Sales Tax due that must and should be affixed to the "selling price" of packs and cartons of cigarettes at retail.

     Tobacco companies reduce and "undermark" the retail prices to, most often, below STATE MINIMUM PRICE to what, for them, is "competitively acceptable" pricing practices that the storeowners are never made aware is being done in their store nor in the tens of thousands of stores in the state nor in the hundreds of thousands to millions of retail outlets across the country that sell tobacco products.

     As a former 17+ year employee of The American Tobacco Company who tried to stop this fraud and many, many other fraudulent business practices from occurring, it should come as no surprise to you that I am now addressing these fraudulent tobacco company practices from the "outside."

     The Shuster Project web site illustrates specific issues of tobacco industry Fraud & False Claims including, but not limited to, state and federal Income Tax Fraud, states Sales Tax Fraud, Antitrust violations and much, much more.

     I suggest you access The Shuster Project web site at: http://www.rxshuster.org and specifically this page: http://rxshuster.org/contigen.htm that will identify a tobacco company form in the middle of the tobacco companies state Income Tax Fraud scheme as a show of good faith that I can assist you and your department in ways you would never otherwise realize in order to address the vast state Sales Tax revenues and state Income Tax revenues you are losing and being defrauded of by the tobacco companies.

     It may or may not come as a surprise to you that the Attorney General of the state of New York has, on no less than four occasions, been given specific and potent information relative to tobacco industry state Sales Tax Fraud and tobacco industry state Income Tax Fraud also accompanied by our offer of assistance and we have yet to hear back from your state's Attorney General.

     We now extend very specific and potent information to you, Mr. Roth.

     The Shuster Project extends an offer to assist your office in the prosecution of the tobacco companies for state Sales Tax Fraud and state Income Tax Fraud and to assist you in the recovery of any and all defrauded funds related to any and all state Sales Tax revenue losses and any and all state Income Tax revenue losses as a result of tobacco company(s) fraud.

     I look forward to hearing back from you within a reasonable amount of time from the transmission of this correspondence relative to it's content.

     Please acknowledge receipt of this letter and what you intend to do, now, given the knowledge of and the identification of tobacco industry state Sales Tax Fraud and tobacco industry state Income Tax Fraud, in terms of participating with The Shuster Project in addressing that fraud.

     As is our custom, this letter will be placed into our CORRESPONDENCE 2000 section to be made available for public review.

     A "hard-copy" version will be mailed regular Certified USPS to:

     Commissioner Arthur J. Roth

     NYS Tax Department

     Taxpayer Assistance Bureau

     W. A. Harriman Campus

     Albany, NY 12227

This web site is equipped with the "Get 1 on 1" guest response system.
If I am in my office, you can contact me in "real time."
If I am out of my office you will be prompted to send me an e-mail.
I will get back to you as quickly as I can.