Tariff increase draws criticism

To the editor:

Readers might well be surprised to read that Valley state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. was co-sponsor of a bill that raises costs to his constituents. The new rule regarding the purchase and bringing across the border of alcoholic beverages from Mexico enacts, or better yet extracts, a tax that jumps from 50 cents currently to $3 per container on Sept. 1.

It is called a "fee" by the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, surely a thinly disguised misnomer. It is a tax pure and simple, one supposedly to cover administration expenses for an operation that should not even exist.

The imposition of this tariff is likely not legal in that the state does not have the power to impose a tariff on an international product of trade. That prerogative lies with the federal government.

For years now those north of the border who have purchased alcoholic beverages from Mexico to bring home have unknowingly been hoodwinked into providing the state revenue. Because it has been a seemingly minor individual matter, no class-action suits on the matter have been instituted.

The fact of the matter is that the border residents have been unfairly burdened, for the state does not stop and impose a tariff on liquor and cigarettes being brought across state lines, or on airplane passengers arriving with these items from either domestic or foreign destinations, other than at the Texas-Mexico border. Is this blatant discrimination or not?

Border bridge authorities along the 26 state collection stations should take joint legal action against the state because it is their businesses that will be negatively affected by this sharp increase in taxation.

Curiously enough, some purchasers totally ignore the TABC stations in that they realize that the TABC officers are not peace officers and hence are not granted "search and confiscate" powers.

Norman Rozeff
Harlingen
Via the Internet