(35 ILCS 135/15) (from Ch. 120, par. 453.45)
    Sec. 15. Every distributor required or authorized to collect taxes imposed by this Act and every person using, in this State, cigarettes purchased on or after the effective date of this Act without Illinois cigarette tax stamps affixed to the original packages thereof and without authorized tax imprints placed underneath the sealed transparent wrapper of such original packages, shall keep such records, receipts, invoices and other pertinent books, documents, memoranda and papers as the Department shall require, in such form as the Department shall require. All books, records, papers, memoranda and documents that are required by this Act to be kept shall be kept in the English language and shall, at all times during business hours of the day, be subject to inspection by the Department or its duly authorized agents and employees. The Department may adopt rules that establish requirements, including record forms and formats, for records required to be kept and maintained by taxpayers. For purposes of this Section, "records" means all data maintained by the taxpayer, including data on paper, microfilm, microfiche or any type of machine-sensible data compilation. The books, records, papers, memoranda and documents of a distributor pertaining to business done by him at or from a licensed place of business, or at or from a place of business for which he holds a permit issued by the Department under Section 7 of this Act, shall be kept by the distributor at such place of business.
    Those books, records, papers, memoranda and documents, required by this Act to be kept, shall be preserved for a period of at least 3 years after the date of the documents or the date of the entries appearing in the records, unless the Department, in writing, authorizes their destruction or disposal at an earlier date.
    At all times during the usual business hours of the day any duly authorized agent or employee of the Department may enter any place of business of a distributor, without a search warrant, and inspect the premises and the stock or packages of cigarettes and the vending devices therein contained, to determine whether any of the provisions of this Act are being violated. If such agent or employee is denied free access or is hindered or interfered with in making such examination as herein provided, the license of the distributor at such premises shall be subject to revocation by the Department.
(Source: P.A. 88-480.)