REGULATIONS RELATING TO THE TAXES ON TOBACCO, SNUFF, CIGARS, AND CIGARETTES, AND PURCHASE AND SALE OF LEAF TOBACCO CHAPTER I GENERAL ARTICLE 1. Explanatory.-The sections of the Revised Statutes and subsequent Acts of Congress have been printed in small type in these regulations immediately preceding the article to which they most nearly relate. SEC. 321 (R. S.). The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, shall have general superintendence of the assessment and collection of all duties and taxes now or hereafter imposed by any law providing internal revenue; and shall prepare and distribute all the instructions, regulations, directions, forms, blanks, stamps, and other matters pertaining to the assessment and collection of internal revenue. SEC. 3396 (R. S.). The Commissioner of Internal Revenue may prescribe such regulations for the inspection of cigars, cheroots, and cigarettes, and the collection of the tax thereon, as he may deem most effective for the prevention of frauds in the payment of such tax. SEC. 3447 (R. S.). * * * He [the Commissioner of Internal Revenue] may also make all such regulations, not otherwise provided for, as may have become necessary by reason of any alteration of law in relation to internal revenue. SEC. 1101 (Revenue Act of 1926). The Commissioner, with the approval of the Secretary, shall prescribe and publish all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of this Act. ART. 2. Authority for regulations.-The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, is empowered to make regulations to carry out the law, or which are necessary by reason of changes in the law, and to make all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of the provisions of the Revenue Acts of 1926, 1928, and 1934. Regulations made in pursuance of such statutory authority have the force of law. Authority to make regulations will be found in other sections of the statutes or Acts of Congress hereinafter quoted. SEC. 3448 (R. S.). The internal-revenue laws imposing taxes on * * tobacco, snuff, and cigars shall be held to extend to such articles produced anywhere within the exterior boundaries of the United States, whether the same be within a collection district or not. ART. 3. Extent of statutes.-Internal revenue taxes imposed on tobacco, snuff, cigars, and cigarettes are in effect in continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska, but not in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, or Virgin Islands or other noncontiguous territories of the United States. SEC. 3140 (R. S., as amended). The word "State," when used in this title (Title XXXV-Internal Revenue), shall be construed to include the Territories and the District of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out its provisions. And where not otherwise distinctly expressed or manifestly incompatible with the intent thereof, the word "person," as used in this title, shall be construed to mean and include a partnership, association, company, or corporation, as well as a natural person. SEC. 1 (R. S.). In determining the meaning of the Revised Statutes, or of any act or resolution of Congress passed subsequent to February twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and seventy-one, words importing the singular number may extend and be applied to several persons or things; words importing the plural number may include the singular; words importing the masculine gender may be applied to females; * * * the word " person" may extend and be applied to partnerships and corporations, and the reference to any officer shall include any person authorized by law to perform the duties of such office, unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense; and a requirement of an "oath" shall be deemed complied with by making affirmation in judicial form. 66 66 66 SEC. 5 (R. S.). The word company" or association," when used in reference to a corporation, shall be deemed to embrace the words successors and assigns of such company or association," in like manner as if these last-named words, or words of similar import, were expressed. ART. 4. Meaning of terms used.-As used in these regulations the terms defined in the above provisions of law shall have the meaning so assigned to them. SEC. 3141 (R. S.). For the purpose of assessing, levying, and collecting the taxes provided by the internal-revenue laws, the President may establish convenient collection districts, and for that purpose he may subdivide any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or may unite two or more States or Territories into one district, and may from time to time alter said districts; * * * SEC. 3142 (R. S.). The President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint for each collection district a collector, who shall be a resident of the same. ART. 5. Collection districts and collectors of internal revenue.-A list of collection districts as constituted at present and addresses of collectors' offices are set forth on pages 150 to 152. SEC. 3163 (R. S., as amended). Every collector within his collection district and every internal-revenue agent shall see that all laws and regulations relating to the collection of internal taxes are faithfully executed and complied with, and shall aid in the prevention, detection, and punishment of any frauds in relation thereto. * ART. 6. Collectors' duties.-Each collector is charged with the duty of seeing that in his district all the laws and regulations concerning the collection of internal revenue taxes are faithfully executed and complied with, and also of aiding in the prevention, detection, and punishment of any frauds in relation thereto. Section 3172, Revised Statutes, as amended, provides that he shall from time to time cause his deputies to proceed through every part of his district and canvass for objects of taxation. Section 3164, Revised Statutes, as amended, also makes it his duty to report violations of law to the district attorney. SEC. 3177 (R. S.). Any collector, deputy collector, or inspector may enter, in the daytime, any building or place where any articles or objects subject to tax are made, produced, or kept, within his district, so far as it may be necessary for the purpose of examining said articles or objects. And any owner of such building or place, or person having the agency or superintendence of the same, who refuses to admit such officer, or to suffer him to examine such article or articles, shall, for every such refusal, forfeit five hundred dollars. And when such premises are open at night, such officers may enter them while so open, in the performance of their official duties. * * * * SEC. 3152 (R. S., as amended). The Commissioner of Internal Reve nué, may, whenever in his judgment the necessities of the service so require, employ competent agents, and he may, at his discretion, assign any such agent to duty under the direction of any officer of internal revenue, or to such other special duty as he may deem necessary; * The agents whose employment is authorized by this section shall be known and designated as internal-revenue agents, and they shall have all the powers of entry and examination conferred upon any officer of internal revenue, by sections thirty-one hundred and seventy* ** of the Revised Statutes; * seven, * And all the provisions of sections thirty-one hundred and sixty-seven, thirty-one hundred and sixty-eight, thirty-one hundred and sixty-nine, and thirty-one hundred and seventy-one of the Revised Statutes shall apply to internal-revenue agents as fully as to internal-revenue officers. ART. 7. Authority to enter premises.-The right to enter in the daytime any building or place where any articles or objects subject to tax are made, produced, or kept, so far as it may be necessary for the purpose of examining said articles or objects, is given the collector, deputy collector, or inspector within his district, and any internal-revenue agent whose employment is authorized by section 3152, Revised Statutes, as amended. (See also sec. 1104, Revenue Act of 1926, as amended by sec. 618, Revenue Act of 1928.) When such premises are open at night, such officers may enter them while open, in the performance of their official duties. Each cigar and tobacco factory will be carefully inspected at frequent intervals by an internal-revenue officer, who shall record his name and the date of his visit in the manufacturer's book and report to the collector on the condition of the factory. If the owner of such building or place, or person in charge, refuses to admit such officer or to permit him to examine such articles or objects, applicable penalties will be invoked. The above right to enter certain premises does not extend to private homes where it is believed a fraud upon the revenue is being committed, which may be entered only under authority of a search warrant. A search warrant can not be issued but upon probable cause, supported by affidavit, naming or describing the person and particularly describing the property and the place to be searched. (Sec. 3, Title XI, Act of June 15, 1917, 40 Stat. 217, 228.) For authority for issuance of search warrants in internal-revenue cases see section 3462, Revised Statutes. ART. 8. Penalty for obstructing officers or rescuing seized property.— If any person shall forcibly obstruct or hinder any collector, deputy collector, or inspector in the execution of any power and authority vested in him by law, or shall forcibly rescue or cause to be rescued any property, articles, or objects after the same shall have been seized by him, or shall attempt or endeavor so to do, the person so offending, excepting in cases otherwise provided for, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of $500, or double the value of the property so rescued, or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years, at the discretion of the court. (Sec. 3177, R. S.) ART. 9. Penalty for any internal revenue officer making disclosures.It shall be unlawful for any collector, deputy collector, agent, clerk, or other officer or employee of the United States to divulge or to make known in any manner whatever not provided by law to any person the operations, style of work, or apparatus of any manufacturer or producer visited by him in the discharge of his official duties, and any offense against the foregoing provision shall be a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court; and if the offender be an officer or employee of the United States he shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment. (Sec. 3167, R. S., as amended.) SEC. 3176 (R. S., as amended). If any person, corporation, company, or association fails to make and file a return or list at the time prescribed by law or by regulation made under authority of law, or makes, willfully or otherwise, a false or fraudulent return or list, the collector or deputy collector shall make the return or list from his own knowledge and from such information as he can obtain through testimony or otherwise. In any such case the Commissioner of Internal Revenue may, from his own knowledge and from such information as he can obtain through testimony or otherwise, make a return or amend any return made by a collector or deputy collector. Any return or list so made and subscribed by the Commissioner, or by a collector or deputy collector and approved by the Commissioner, shall be prima facie good and sufficient for all legal purposes. ART. 10. Commissioner, collector, or deputy collector to make return in certain cases. In case a manufacturer or dealer fails to make and file a return or inventory at the time prescribed by law or regulations, the Commissioner, collector or deputy collector, may make such return or inventory under the above statutory provisions. SEC. 3229 (R. S.). The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the advice and consent of the Secretary of the Treasury, may compromise any civil or criminal case arising under the internal-revenue laws instead of commencing suit thereon; and, with the advice and consent of the said Secretary and the recommendation of the Attorney General, he may compromise any such case after a suit thereon has been commenced. Whenever a compromise is made in any case there shall be placed on file in the office of the Commissioner the opinion of the Solicitor of Internal Revenue, or of the officer acting as such,1 with his reasons therefor, with a statement of the amount of tax assessed, the amount of additional tax or penalty imposed by law in consequence of the neglect or delinquency of the person against whom the tax is as sessed, and the amount actually paid in accordance with the terms of the compromise. * SEC. 616 (Revenue Act 1928). Any person who, in connection with any compromise under section 3229 of the Revised Statutes, as amended, or offer of such compromise, willfully (1) conceals from any officer or employee of the United States any property belonging to the estate of a taxpayer or other person liable in respect of the tax, or (2) receives, destroys, mutilates, or falsifies any book, document, or record, or makes under oath any false statement, relating to the estate or financial condition of the taxpayer or other person liable in respect of the tax, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both. ART. 11. Compromise of taxes and penalties.-Offers in compromise when made should be filed with the appropriate collector of internal revenue. No offer in compromise of tax, interest, and ad valorem penalty collectible as part of the tax will be accepted unless there is a substantial doubt as to either liability or collectibility. 1 The functions prescribed for the "Solicitor of Internal Revenue" by section 3229 of the Revised Statutes are now exercised by the "Assistant General Counsel for the Bureau of Internal Revenue." See section 1201 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1926 and section 512 of the Revenue Act of 1934. |