Friday, June 02, 2006

U.S. v. 4,432 Mastercases of Cigarettes (9th Cir. - June 2, 2006)

I didn't know what a "mastercase" of cigarettes entailed. Nor did I know anything about gray market cigarettes, the benefits of and restrictions surrounding the reimportation of domestic cigarettes (or importation of domestic brands manufactured abroad), the purpose or function of Foreign Trade Zones -- a term I had never even heard of -- in the United States, or the various legal differences between ad valorem and excise property taxes as applied to products in a FTZ.

But, after reading this opinion, I now consider myself an expert. (As you can tell, it doesn't take much for me to come to that conclusion about myself.) Read it. You'll definitely learn at least a couple new things. You may also get an inkling into how places like DirtCheapCigarettes.com obtain at least some (and perhaps most) of their discount wares. Which, again, was something that I didn't previously understand. But now I do.

Knowledge is awesome, eh?