Marlboro cigarettes store

Few do. "The Internet is a boon to us all," said Ray Domkus, 58, a semi-retired auto worker in Burbank, California, who has smoked for 40 years. "We don't want to pay the high taxes that the states want us to pay.""Many of us are on fixed incomes and I would say a good half of us are buying from out of state," said Domkus, who is also head of a California smokers rights group. States are fighting back, and courts are seeing many cases like the one filed by California against online tobacco."We estimate that about 20 percent of minors are purchasing illegally, and the revenue lost to state and local government is fairly substantial ... there is no effort, on delivery, to check identification or age, or getting someone to sign for the delivery." Current rules leave it up to the buyer, not the retailer, to pay state sales tax on online cigarettes.

As of March, Philip Morris had filed 18 lawsuits against Internet retailers, and it has sent warning letters to 80 others.Philip Morris says it has surveyed 500 sites selling online cigarettes to American customers and found that not a single one complies with basic standards (news - web sites) of tax reporting or safeguards against sales to minors. "Overall, the number of people purchasing (Internet) cigarettes is still relatively small, but growing at a rather alarming rate," said Tom Ryan, a Philip Morris USA spokesman. "Alarming, I say, because much of that growth is based on illegal sales."In January, New York City sued several Web sites for evading the city's steep taxes, and a number of states have also taken legal action.