Where there’s smoke, there’s money –
Dec. 23, 2020 – Feinstein’s bill amends the Jenkins Act of 1949, which requires that vendors who sell cigarettes to customers in other states register with the tax administrators in those states and notify them of all such sales so they can collect the taxes that the buyers are officially obligated to pay. In 2002, the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) found that online cigarette sellers routinely flouted the Jenkins Act and that the federal government had done virtually nothing to enforce it. Nine years later, Congress amended the law, beefing up its reporting requirements and extending it to cover roll-your-own tobacco. The Feinstein bill further expands the Jenkins Act, redefining cigarette to include “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” which are not cigarettes. It also counterintuitively defines electronic nicotine delivery system to include products that do not deliver nicotine: “any electronic device that, through an aerosolized solution, delivers nicotine, flavor, or any other substance to the user inhaling from the device” (emphasis added). That category includes e-cigarettes, e-hookahs, e-cigars, electronic pipes, vape pens, and refillable vaporizers, plus “any component, liquid, part, or accessory” used with those devices, whether shipped together with them or sold separately.
