Action

Thousands of People all over the country are participating in the NYC Butts protest to clean up waste and earn rewards. The program ingeniously takes advantage of US Mailboxes, located virtually everywhere, making recycling easy. NYC pays a 10% reward to people reporting tax evaders!

The 2007 GCSC Project
Cigarette butts have once again topped the Dirty Dozen List, (the top 12 items collected during the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.) So Far This year, 157,973 cigarette butts were collected, for the NYC Butts protest generating $184,828.41 in new NYC tax revenues and $18,828 in rewards!
  

Cigarette filters are made up of a type plastic called cellulose acetate that does not break down easily in the environment. In fact, it can take up to five years for a cigarette butt to biodegrade said Jean LeFite proudly displaying booty worth $436.41 in new tax revenue

Cigarette butts are the most littered item in Texas, making up 13 percent of the trash in the state, according to Keep America Beautiful.

“NYC Butts is a rare Win – Win collaboration benefiting smokers, non smokers, anti smokers, minors and tax collectors alike!” said Earth First! campus leader Bogan Durr.

She said the Quad and other areas on campus have collected thousands more discarded butts now than before because of the reward NYC pays to her organization. A group of Camp Fire Girls picks up butts on campus as part of the NYC Butt protest project, We collected more than 13,000 butts in an afternoon, thats over $15,000 in new tax revenue earning us $1,500 in rewards, Durr said.

Facts about cigarette butt littering

An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide every year.

Over 32 billion cigarette butts are disposed of in NY each year. if placed end to end they would circle the planet 16 times.

Almost 50 per cent of all litter in our urban areas is tobacco related products- butts, cellophane wrapping, foil inserts and packaging.

Cigarette butts are considered the No 1 litter in most of our many National Parks and on our magnificent beaches.

If all the butts in NYC went to landfill this would amount to an estimated 13000m3 of solid waste. That’s the equivalent of approx. 180 semi-trailer truck loads of cigarette butts. However only a small proportion of used cigarette butts are collected and taken to landfill.

NYC Butts could generate enough in new tax revenue to get rid of all government debt

NYC BUTTS – Free Cigarettes

The NYC Cigarette Tax Laws are unfair and until an example is made they will likely never change and the tax machine will continue to roll all of us over.

Every retailer selling cigarettes should provide the label below with each pack to encourage recycling of cigarettes. Retailers may even be entitled to MSA money and tax credits to offset their costs for this massive cigarette recycling effort.

Everyone is encouraged to recycle and become an unlicensed manufacturer of NYC Butts cigarettes. The cost is free, the process is simple and the legal ramifications are sure to promote change. Plus, as an added ecological benefit we would all be working together in the world’s largest collaborative effort for the recycling of cigarettes.

All that is required to manufacture NYC Butts cigarettes is any empty cigarette box, a dirty ashtray and an NYC Butts packaging label.

Step 1. Remove the cellophane and make sure there are no tax stamps on the package.
Step 2. Empty ashtray into the cigarette box carefully counting each cigarette butt. (Ashes are ok they make good packing material)
Step 3. Affix label below with accurate count of NYC Butts and deposit in nearest US mail box.  

Congratulations! You are officially, under the current laws of NY, an unlicensed cigarette manufacturer of NYC Butts! Not only have you recycled cigarettes and carcinogenic waste but you have earned NYC new cigarette tax revenue!

 

NYC Butts Recycling and Packaging Labels: MS Word Format Acrobat PDF

The NYC Butt label is designed to recycle any brand cigarette package in compliance with the Surgeon General Health Warnings required by law. Specially engineered to seal and preserve the full bodied flavor, aroma and lipstick rings of NYC Butts, the label is pre-addressed with appropriate postal notice and can simply be deposited into the nearest US Mailbox for recycling and prompt delivery: Try our NYC Butts Recycling Mailbox Locator.

No need for postage as the postal service will proudly deliver these hand made babies postage due to any officials with Franking privileges!

Franking privilege

Typically granted to certain elected officials by a government, is the privilege to send and receive mail for free. A franking privileged person adds his or her signature or a facsimile thereof to a letter or parcel in lieu of a postage stamp. Elected officials and the postal service are both endowed by the taxpayer. Adding an official’s mail to the existing mailstream does not change the total fixed cost of the postal system from the taxpayer’s perspective, and avoids reciprocal accounting transactions. The phrase franking is derived from the Latin word “francus” meaning free. However:

Title 18, USC, Section 1719 Franking privilege
Whoever makes use of any official envelope, label, or indorsement authorized by law, to avoid the payment of postage or registry fee on his private letter, packet, package, or other matter in the mail, shall be fined not more than $300.

Print out NYC Butts Recycling and Packaging Labels to manufacture more NYC Butts and send them by mail to all of your favorite officials. We’ve even got more NYC Butts stuff available at CafePress for this monumental cleanup effort. ie.

Eliot Spitzer
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Rewards for Reporting Tax Evaders

For fiscally concerned taxpayers it is your duty to go online and report the possibility of tax evasion and fraud with the NYC Finance Commission:  NYC has offered a special 10% Reward for reports of Cigarette Tax Evaders and the IRS offers 15% – 25% rewards for Federal Tax evaders using IRS Form 211 Application for Reward for Original Information.  The US Postal Service offers rewards of up to $50,000 for unlawful use of postage. Poster 296 – Notice of Reward and Hotline to Inspector General. 

— Cut-n-paste Sample NYC Report: (use nycbutts AT gmail to report anonymously) —

Dear New York City Commissioner of Finance, On _______ date a package containing _______ NYC Butts unlicensed and untaxed cigarettes was deposited in the mail for delivery to: Mr. Michael Bloomberg, City Hall, NY, NY 10007.  I have a reasonable belief Mr. Bloomberg is in possession of these unlicensed and untaxed cigarettes received by mail. Under NY Tax Law section 471, Mr. Bloomberg is required to remit applicable taxes using form CG-15 within 24 hours of receipt. If your records do not indicate receipt of Form CG-15 with payment for the aforementioned cigarette shipment by Mr. Bloomberg than demand is made for investigation of possible tax evasion and fraud.      Failure to remit taxes and report such untaxed cigarettes within 24 hours of receipt would constitute possession of contraband cigarettes. A pattern of such activity are violations under the RICO statutes and Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act: (18 U.S.C. 2341 et seq.)(”CCTA”). Pursuant to TSB-M-03(1)M Enforcement Provisions Regarding… Possession of Cigarettes in New York State:  The New York City Commissioner of Finance is authorized to impose Civil and Criminal penalties for bootlegging a fine of $1 per cigarette as penalty for violations of the cigarette tax imposed by the Administrative Code of the City of New York. As a Fiduciary to NYC, Mr. Bloomberg is held to the highest levels and standards to abide and follow all laws and it would only be proper the maximum penalty be authorized.     Respectfully, Fiscally Concerned Taxpayer

UNFAIR AND UNJUST LAWS

Under NY laws receiving unlicensed and untaxed NYC Butts cigarettes are subject to the payment of State and City taxes within 24 hours of receipt and reported using Form CG-15 Cigarette Use Tax Return. Receiving over 10,000 of these hand made beauties makes it a federal possession and trafficking offense, without tax stamps they are contraband cigarettes.

The law does not care if you ordered them, received them as gifts, didn’t order them, gave them away, threw them away, burned them, smoked them or any other excuse. If you are a NY resident and receive untaxed cigarettes of any kind by mail you are individually responsible and liable for reporting and paying all taxes without exception.

Cigarette means any roll for smoking made wholly or in part of tobacco or any other substance, regardless of size, shape, or whether such tobacco or substance is flavored, adulterated, or mixed with any other ingredient, the wrapper or cover of which is made of paper or any other substance or material except tobacco. – Form CG-15

These laws do not differentiate cigarettes between new, used, damaged, recycled, remanufactured, samples, for resale, for personal use.

NYC BUTTS	Federal Tax	NY State Tax	NYC City Tax	Bootlegging Penalty	New Tax Revenues
20	$0.40	$1.50	$1.50	$20.00	$23.40
25	$0.50	$1.88	$1.88	$25.00	$29.26
40	$0.80	$3.00	$3.02	$40.00	$46.82
100	$2.00	$7.50	$7.60	$100.00	$117.10
200	$4.00	$15.00	$15.18	$200.00	$234.18
1,000	$20.00	$75.00	$76.00	$1,000	$1,171
10,000	$200.00	$750.00	$760.00	$10,000	$11,710

In addition to the above $3.40 to $8.53 in new tax revenue due to the state, the civil penalty for possession of unstamped or unlawfully stamped cigarettes is an additional $1 per cigarette received by mail. A carton of 200 NYC Butts cigarettes can potentially generate $234.18 in new tax revenue. Thats $1.17 in new tax revenue per NYC Butt cigarette!!!

So not only are we promoting change to these unfair laws and taxes, we are collectively recycling and increasing the tax revenues while possibly cleaning up corrupt and privileged tax evaders. Mayor Bloomberg may be an oppressive Billionaire but his fortunes can quickly go up in… SMOKE.

Get everyone involved – YOU can make a difference!

– Link to this post to support NYC BUTTS – FREE CIGARETTES.
– Print and distribute NYC Butt labels to retailers with this message.
– Encourage everyone to recycle cigarettes and carcinogenic waste.
– Be fiscally responsible and report suspected tax evasion and fraud.
– Recycle NYC BUTTS cigarettes and send them out by mail today.

NYC Butts is a rare Win – Win collaboration benefiting smokers, non smokers, anti smokers, minors and tax collectors alike!

NYC BUTTS – Free Cigarettes – Promoting Responsible Smoking – Recycling of Cigarettes – New Tax Revenues and Protest of NYC Cigarette Taxes.