From the PD:

The state is smoking out Ohio smokers who evaded cigarette taxes by shopping online between July and March.

Nearly 5,500 buyers should expect a bill for unpaid excise and use taxes on cigarettes purchased during that nine-month period, the Ohio Department of Taxation announced Monday. The combined tab? More than $2.15 million, including nearly $370,000 owed to Cuyahoga County.

The largest bill - $2,700 - belongs to a Huron County resident who bought 2,160 packs from out-of-state Internet vendors. Most bills are less than $600. They must be paid within 30 days, according to the department, which did not release names.

“If people bought online to avoid taxes,” state spokesman Mike McKinney said, “they’re going to be disappointed.”

Five vendors supplied tax collectors with the names, addresses and transaction details for Ohio customers. A federal law requires online cigarette vendors to report sales with each state for tax purposes. Ohio requested the information, McKinney said.

Why isn’t Ted Strickland and the Ohio Democrat Party on top of this issue, complaining how Ohio’s taxes on smoking disproportionately affects poor and working-class Ohioans? Could it be that liberals would rather increase state revenue than give a break to the poor, downtrodden, and the “losers in life’s lottery”?

I give credit to these smokers for finding creative ways to avoid Ohio’s high levels of taxation, including the $1.25 added by Ohio to every pack of cigarettes (or $1.595/pack if you live in the People’s Republic of Cuyahoga County). For a state which forbids smoking in almost every public indoor building, Ohio seems to strongly disapprove of smoking while still remaining dependent on cigarette tax revenue.

And what would the left say if the Federal government worked so publicly with online vendors to track down potential terrorists? Isn’t this “domestic spying”? When taxes are involved, the so-called “right to privacy” seems to go out the window!