Court Bans Sale Of Tax-Free Cigarettes By Tribes

[The Straight Story]

Court Bans Sale Of Tax-Free Cigarettes By Tribes

A New York State appeals court has unanimously upheld a 2010 state law requiring Native American tribes to charge state-levied taxes on cigarettes sold to patrons from off the reservations, according to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The ruling lifts an injunction against enforcing the law, put in place after the Seneca Nation in upstate New York challenged the law’s constitutionality. Now, Native American cigarette sellers say that national tobacco companies are no longer delivering cigarettes to them unless taxes are collected.

“Right now, we’ll have to start looking at layoffs,” said Lance Gumbs, a Shinnecock Indian Nation member who operates a trading post and smoke shop on the reservation in Southampton. “What this does is, it puts us out of business. It won’t stop people from buying tax-free cigarettes—it will just create a black market, like during Prohibition.”

...

The State Legislature approved the law in August 2010, requiring taxes to be collected from wholesalers who sell cigarettes to Native American tribes, rather from the sellers themselves. Native American tribes are considered sovereign nations and cannot be taxed themselves by the federal or state governments. The state estimates that nearly $500,000 in cigarette taxes go unpaid every day through the tax-free sale of cigarettes by Native Americans.

But tribe members said that the new law actually is an end-run around the constitutional exemption from taxes afforded to Native Americans that robs them of one of few economic opportunities for their members. They also claimed that the purported benefits of charging the tax is a red herring, because the state will not actually see increases in revenues: with no price advantage over traditional cigarette sellers, they say, Native American sellers will simply go out of business.

http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/383531/Court-Bans-Sale-Of-Tax-Free-Cigarettes-By-Indians

[Riftaxe]

1. Recently we in New Hampshire had

massachusetts try to enforce their sales tax on their resident's who bought items in New Hampshire. The court after much thought "kidding" threw the lawsuit out, saying the state of MA had no jurisdiction.

How is this different, either the tribes are autonomous or they are not? Certainly states are.

[Abq_Sarah]

4. When sovereignty collides with tax collection

Tax collection wins.

[MyrnaLoy]

2. Won't hold up

Supreme Court ruled that tribes are domestic dependent nations, states have no regulatory authority over them. Republicans in state government continually try to wrestle control from the federal government and the tribes for years.

See the Marshall trilogy cases

[Brother Buzz]

3. Tribal sovereignty means that: it's sovereign.

I mean, you’re a — you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities. - GWB

200 duty free cigarettes was the norm back in my traveling days

[johnnie]

5. Now ya did it TSS

You posted a smoking thread that befuddles the masses. This thread is a bit quiet for a smoking thread. I wonder why.

[The Straight Story]

6. Need to find an article about being allowed to smoke in bars on Indian land

:evilgrin: