A. A distributor selling and shipping cigarettes outside New Mexico may maintain unstamped packages of cigarettes on the distributor's premises if the unstamped packages to be shipped outside the state are kept in a separate part of the distributor's place of business, physically segregated from packages of cigarettes to be sold inside New Mexico and clearly identified as packages of cigarettes for shipment outside the state. If packages of cigarettes to be sold outside New Mexico are intermingled with packages of cigarettes to be sold inside New Mexico, they shall be stamped and treated for purposes of the Cigarette Tax Act as packages of cigarettes to be sold inside New Mexico.

B. Unstamped packages of cigarettes shall not be transferred by a distributor to another facility of the distributor's or to another person within New Mexico.

C. A person doing business as both a distributor and a retailer or both a distributor and a manufacturer shall maintain separate areas for stamped and unstamped packages of cigarettes.

History: 1953 Comp., § 72-14-11, enacted by Laws 1971, ch. 77, § 11; 2006, ch. 91, § 12.

Repeals and reenactments. — Laws 1971, ch. 77, § 11, repealed 72-14-11, 1953 Comp., relating to revenue stamps, and enacted a new section.

The 2006 amendment, effective May 17, 2006, in Subsection A, provided that a distributor may maintain unstamped packages on the distributor's premises; added Subsection B to prohibit the transfer of unstamped packages to other facilities; and added Subsection C to provide that a person doing business as both a retainer and a distributor or a distributor and manufacturer shall maintain separate areas for stamped and unstamped packages.