Tobacco - Violation

The Tobacco Tax Enforcement Program

Common Violations Found During Licensee Inspections

As Tobacco Tax enforcement officers, our job is to ensure that you:

Purchase tobacco products from legitimate sources (people licensed to sell tobacco products to retail outlets in Washington)
Maintain records on your premises to show where those tobacco products were purchased

Violations, and how to avoid them

Problem - no invoices showing purchases at the businesses. You are required to purchase all tobacco products from Wholesalers and Distributors licensed to sell tobacco products in Washington State. We check to insure that you are doing so.

You must have invoices for all tobacco products "on your licensed premise and, " They shall show the name and address of the consignee, the date, the quantity of tobacco products delivered. The idea is you need to be able to show us that they came from an authorized source.

Problem - Invoice doesn't show proper information.The invoice must clearly show where you bought the tobacco (including their name and address), each and the price you paid for To insure we can inspect all tobacco products on the licensed premise, state laws require that you have all invoices for all tobacco for the previous five year period.

If you send your invoices to a CPA (or someone else) to do your tax returns, no problem; just insure you have a copy of those invoices on the licensed premise.

Problem - Cigarettes without tax stamps on the pack.Cigarettes sold in Washington State must have a Washington State Tax Stamp. The wholesaler that sells them to you is required to check to insure the cigarettes sold have tax stamps.

Remember:You are the person selling them to the ultimate person that will smoke them, and you are responsible to insure that each package has a legible approved Washington State tax stamp, like the ones on the left side of the page.

Note: There is no law requiring that you place your cigarettes with the tax stamp facing out (so your employees can see them), however, corrective action have been taken in several cases where the employee had no idea that she/he was selling cigarettes with the wrong tax stamp on them.

If the employee can see the cigarette stamp when they remove the package of cigarettes, the probability of them observing a problem is considerably higher then if they do not see the tax stamp. And - that information comes from someone with several years of Tobacco Tax Enforcement experience.

Problem - Selling brands that aren't on the accepted list of tobacco that can be sold in Washington. You must purchase all tobacco from a distributor or wholesaler that has a license to sell tobacco in the state of Washington.

You have two choices

Choice one is to become a distributor (with a distributor's license). Then you can purchase and sell that specific brand.
Choice two - don't sell that brand of cigar (or whatever).