Even before yesterday’s shooting of a security guard outside a Native American-owned cigarette shop on Long Island, tensions were high over New York’s plan to collect taxes on cigarettes sold by Natives to non-Natives. Carolyn Thompson of the Associated Press explores the issue in depth:

CATTARAUGUS INDIAN RESERVATION, N.Y. (AP) — As New York Indian Nation leaders battle in courtrooms to preserve their tax-free cigarette market, tensions are rising on reservations, where the state’s renewed efforts to tax sales to non-Native customers is viewed as yet another attack on Native American rights.

“For 200 years, we have been dealing with efforts to take our land, efforts to take our resources, efforts to take our jurisdiction,” said Robert Odawi Porter, senior policy adviser and counsel for the 7,800-member Seneca nation in western New York, which says its cigarette business is a $100 million-a-year industry.

Trustee Lance Gumbs from Long Island’s Shinnecock tribe called the tax “just another extension of … the genocidal tactics of New York state.”

“Every tribe is committed to fight this issue,” said Gumbs at his smoke shop in Southampton.

Nine New York tribes are in the cigarette business. The $4.35 sales tax would force them to raise their prices and blunt their competitive edge over off-reservation sellers. Tribal leaders say the income loss would devastate economies.

A rally last week alongside the New York state Thruway where it bisects the Senecas’ Cattaraugus reservation was organized as a peaceful “people’s rally.” But there were reminders of 1997 chaos that erupted the last time the state tried to tax reservation sales.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Barry Snyder, Buffalo cigarettes, buffalo post, Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, Cayuga Indian Nation, cigarette taxes, David Paterson, J.C. Seneca, Kern Swoboda, Lance Gumbs, Native American news, New York State Police, New York Thruway, PACT Act, Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking, Richard Jemison, Robert Odawi Porter, Seneca Free Trade Association, Seneca Nation, Shinnecock, St. Regis Mohawk, Tribal smoke shops, tribal sovereignty

The Cayuga Indian Nation is looking to sue two New York state counties that seized its cigarettes in a 2008 tax raid, following a favorable state Court of Appeals ruling.

“All of this was completely avoidable,” Syracuse attorney Daniel French, who represents the nation, tells Scott Rapp of the Syracuse Post-Tribune, here.

The cigarettes seized in the raid were held as evidence. Although the tribe sought their return, authorities refused and now the nation wants to be reimbursed for the spoiled cigarettes.

The counties were fighting the Cayuga Nation’s ability to sell tax-free smokes at its LakeSide Trading stores in Union Springs and Seneca Falls.

But Rapp reports the Appeals Court yesterday upheld a lower court decision that the Cayugas do not have to pay state sales tax on the cigarettes because its two stores are on qualified reservation land under state taxation law:

The appeals court also affirmed the lower state court ruling, which barred the two counties from seeking criminal tax-evasion charges against the nation and its leaders because the state does not have a tax-collecting mechanism in place, according to French. Sealed indictments were handed up in each county but never opened.

“The Cayuga Nation is extraordinarily pleased with the decision and had great confidence that the court would reject these ill-conceived prosecutions,’’ French said.

“It’s a great day to be a Cayuga Indian,’’ says Clint Halftown, the nation’s federally recognized representative.

Cayuga and Seneca counties seized the cigarettes to pay what they claimed were $480,000 in back taxes. The Cayuga Nation says it will sue them for $500,000.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Cayuga County, Cayuga Indian Nation, Seneca County, tribal cigarettes, tribal sovereignty