Record Keeping Requirements

PURPOSE: This rule prescribes the record keeping display, reporting and other requirements regarding cigarette sales in Missouri. (1) A cigarette wholesaler operating a retail place of business or vending machine must keep records of the retail business and the vending machine business separate from the records of the wholesale cigarette business. (2) In all cases where a wholesaler is selling, both as a retailer and a wholesaler at the same place of business, any cigarettes that do not bear a Missouri tax stamp must be kept in a room separated from the retail business by a wall or partition. (3) The name and address of the owner of any cigarette vending machine in operation within Missouri must be displayed on each vending machine. (4) Each owner and operator of cigarette vending machines must keep a record showing the business location of each vending machine currently being serviced, which must be available to the department at the principal place of business in Missouri of the owner or operator. (5) Operators of cigarette vending machines must load packages of cigarettes in vending machines so that if any packages are visible while in the machine the tax stamp will be clearly visible. AUTHORITY: sections 66.380, 136.030, 136.120, 149.021 and 210.320, RSMo 2000 and 149.015, RSMo Supp. 2005.* Cigarette Tax Regulation 5 was last filed Dec. 31, 1975, effective Jan. 10, 1976. Amended: Filed Feb. 18, 1983, effective June 11, 1983. Amended: Filed Jan. 31, 1994, effective July 30, 1994. Amended: Filed Sept. 30, 2005, effective April 30, 2006. *Original authority: 66.380, RSMo 1967, amended 1993, 1995; 136.030, RSMo 1945, amended 1947, 1949, 1965; 136.120, RSMo 1945; 149.015, RSMo 1974, amended 1982, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2005; 149.021, RSMo 1974, amended 1982; and 210.320, RSMo 1939, amended 1969, 1976, 1978, 1993, 1995. Robert Williams and Co., Inc. v. State Tax Commission, 498 SW2d 527 (1973). In Missouri, or in the other states which have considered this question, tobacco and liquor cannot be sold without payment of both federal and state taxes thereon. Without payment of the taxes, their sale would be illegal and they would be valueless. Payment of the taxes being essential to the creation of a salable product and the amount of the taxes paid constituting money invested in the merchandise, they (the taxes) were properly included in the valuation of appellant’s inventories (for purpose of an ad valorem tax on goods in possession of a merchant).