ngdawg, I'm too lazy to find the thread I started in early '05 but we got socked with the same thing from the State of Michigan. I know the $262 hurts but our bill was almost $2,400.
We'd been buying from a company called "Dirt Cheap" cigarettes in NY and were paying $10 a carton. Our lovely Governer Granholm
and the state of MI charged us $20 a carton in taxes.
Sorry to say but even though it only lists the one site on your bill, expect to recieve bills from any other site eventually. We got another a few months later from another site for $400, thankfully we didn't buy much from them before we got taxed and started rolling our own.
The best news I can give you is that we applied for and were approved for a 24 month re-payment plan. We were paying $101 a month and once the portion under my name was paid, we are down to hubbies $66 a month with only a $300 balance. Your $262 would be very managable if NJ offers that option. You should be able to find info. and the forms on your state governments website. Hope that helps.
By the way, when we got socked, we thought about buying through a reservation thinking they were protected from disclosure. Then we found out a co-worker of hubbies, whose family of 4 all smoked and ordered from a reservation, got sent a bill in excess of $10,000. That changed our minds right quick.