Dojo
12-02-2008, 03:41 AM
Potential Revenue for State: $1 Billion from Indian Taxes?
The Governor says New York State's financial future looks grim, with a projected $15 billion dollar deficit. But, there's a big potential revenue source basically sitting on his desk. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a bill making it easier to collect taxes from Indian nations on gasoline and cigarettes.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, (R-Long Island) says, "Sales tax on Indian reservations that passed the legislature early in the year, the Assembly has refused to send it down to you at this point for you to make a decision as to whether you're going to sign it or veto it."
State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos pushed the idea at Tuesday's leaders meeting in Albany. "There's perhaps half a billion to a billion dollars," said Skelos, his suggestions for closing the budget gap.
Western New York State Senator Dale Volker says it's a better idea than making cuts to schools and in healthcare. Volker (R-Depew), "You could get part of it now, the bill is sitting in the Assembly. If it was referred to the Governor, we could start collecting tax probably within a week."
But when Governor Pataki attempted to collect taxes from Indians in the 90's, protests got ugly. And now, the Senecas have launched a television ad campaign against the idea.
Paterson (D-NY) says, "We are addressing the issue of collecting not only cigarette but, gasoline taxes from Indian nations. That is my next priority, but no matter what I do I won't be able to get $500 million dollars to a billion dollars in this budget cycle. 2009, 2010, now we're talking about a different story." The governor is working on hammering out a deal with the Indian nations.....
(HERE'S THE HAMMER)
The Associated PressPosted Nov 26, 2008 @ 10:18 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seneca Falls, N.Y. — Authorities in two upstate New York counties RAIDED cigarette shops operated by the Cayuga Indian Nation on Tuesday. Deputies from Cayuga and Seneca counties seized boxes of untaxed cigarettes from two Lake Side Trading convenience stores owned by the Cayuga Indian Nation in Union Springs and Seneca Falls. The raids were staged simultaneously. The stores were violating state law by selling cigarettes without charging the required tax, authorities said.
Representatives from the Cayuga Nation said they were contacting their lawyer.Cayuga Nation representatives Clint Halftown and Tim Twoguns were inside the store later Tuesday afternoon.“We’re speechless,” Twoguns told The Post-Standard of Syracuse. He referred questions to the Cayuga County sheriff.
At a news conference Tuesday, Seneca County District Attorney Richard Swinehart and Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann said the two stores were not on sovereign Indian land or on reservation land, so they must be treated as ordinary private businesses illegally selling untaxed cigarettes.
Swinehart and Budelmann said they acted against the Cayugas based on an Oneida Indians dispute with the city of Sherill. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Indian nations could not claim land they simply bought as sovereign. The two Cayuga stores are on purchased land. Deputies blocked the entrances to both stores, turning customers away while other officers carried out boxes of merchandise and cigarettes for loading onto trailers.
Cayuga Nation takes legal action after raidBy Nate Robson / The Citizen
Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:18 PM EST
After the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office raided two of its convenience stores for untaxed cigarettes last Tuesday, the Cayuga Nation will seek to have any pending felony tax evasion charges dismissed before they are filed on the grounds that the search warrant violated their sovereignty.
The tribe's attorney, Dan French, said his office will argue on Wednesday that a warrant obtained by the sheriffs' and district attorneys' offices in Cayuga and Seneca counties violated a state injunction that limited the enforcement of tax laws on American Indians, and that the Lake Side Trading stores in Union Springs and Seneca Falls are part of a 64,000-acre reservation established in a treaty by President George Washington in the 1794.
The tribe, along with other Indian nations in New York, have claimed they are exempt from collecting sales and excise taxes on their property because their businesses are protected by their sovereign nation status.
The tribe will also argue that all of the evidence collected in the raid, which includes 1.5 million cigarettes, needs to be returned because the search was illegal.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cayuga Indian Nation seeks court order to resume selling cigarettes in Seneca and Cayuga counties
Court hearing to decide if Cayugas may resume sale of tax-free cigarettes.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
By Scott Rapp
Staff writer
It's back to court for the Cayuga Indian Nation in its long-running tax feud with Cayuga and Seneca counties.
On Wednesday, the Cayugas will seek a court order that would allow them to resume peddling tax-free cigarettes at their convenience stores in Union Springs and the town of Seneca Falls.
The nation was forced to stop selling cigarettes Nov. 25 after sheriff's deputies in both counties seized all of their 17,600 cartons of smokes for not paying some $485,000 in state excise taxes on them.
The Cayugas plan to ask state Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Fisher, of Monroe County, for an injunction on grounds that last week's searches were illegal and that the counties are trying to enforce a law that is not in effect, Daniel French, a nation lawyer, said Monday.
The counties say otherwise. They will argue that the Cayugas' LakeSide Trading stores are not on sovereign, tax-free reservation land and that it is illegal to possess and sell unstamped cigarettes on nonreservation land, Seneca County District Attorney Richard Swinehart said.
"We say we have the right to do it; they say we don't. The judge will decide; that's the bottom line," Swinehart said.
The court hearing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. in Cayuga County.
Both counties have been trying for about 31/2 years to force the Cayugas to pay taxes on sales of cigarettes and gasoline at their convenience stores.
The excise tax on the confiscated cigarettes amounts to $27.50 per carton but does not include sales tax. The counties say the Cayugas are driving competitors out of business because the nation can sell their goods at lower, tax-free prices.
"There's no exemption for them not to pay the tax. They're simply evading paying millions of dollars of taxes," Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann said.
The Cayugas own many properties, including the two stores, in their ancestral homeland around the north end of Cayuga Lake. Their application to have the stores and other properties put into federal trust - which would make them sovereign and tax-free forever - is pending before the federal government.
French said the dispute has little to do with whether the
stores are on sovereign, tax-free reservation land.
Instead, the state tax code lists the nation as a "qualified reservation," a designation, he said, that allows for the Cayugas to sell tax-free cigarettes.
Also, French said, a state Supreme Court judge in Buffalo has barred the state from collecting taxes on sales at Native American businesses. The judge issued the injunction in January 2007 because the state failed to issue tax-exemption coupons for Indians who buy goods from Native American merchants, French said.
"Our contention is the law the district attorneys (in both counties) are trying to prosecute is enjoined from being enforced," he added.
The state Taxation and Finance Department has yet to implement a coupon system for collecting taxes from the Cayugas and other Indian merchants, nearly two years after the injunction was issued.
The Governor says New York State's financial future looks grim, with a projected $15 billion dollar deficit. But, there's a big potential revenue source basically sitting on his desk. Earlier this year, the state legislature passed a bill making it easier to collect taxes from Indian nations on gasoline and cigarettes.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, (R-Long Island) says, "Sales tax on Indian reservations that passed the legislature early in the year, the Assembly has refused to send it down to you at this point for you to make a decision as to whether you're going to sign it or veto it."
State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos pushed the idea at Tuesday's leaders meeting in Albany. "There's perhaps half a billion to a billion dollars," said Skelos, his suggestions for closing the budget gap.
Western New York State Senator Dale Volker says it's a better idea than making cuts to schools and in healthcare. Volker (R-Depew), "You could get part of it now, the bill is sitting in the Assembly. If it was referred to the Governor, we could start collecting tax probably within a week."
But when Governor Pataki attempted to collect taxes from Indians in the 90's, protests got ugly. And now, the Senecas have launched a television ad campaign against the idea.
Paterson (D-NY) says, "We are addressing the issue of collecting not only cigarette but, gasoline taxes from Indian nations. That is my next priority, but no matter what I do I won't be able to get $500 million dollars to a billion dollars in this budget cycle. 2009, 2010, now we're talking about a different story." The governor is working on hammering out a deal with the Indian nations.....
(HERE'S THE HAMMER)
The Associated PressPosted Nov 26, 2008 @ 10:18 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seneca Falls, N.Y. — Authorities in two upstate New York counties RAIDED cigarette shops operated by the Cayuga Indian Nation on Tuesday. Deputies from Cayuga and Seneca counties seized boxes of untaxed cigarettes from two Lake Side Trading convenience stores owned by the Cayuga Indian Nation in Union Springs and Seneca Falls. The raids were staged simultaneously. The stores were violating state law by selling cigarettes without charging the required tax, authorities said.
Representatives from the Cayuga Nation said they were contacting their lawyer.Cayuga Nation representatives Clint Halftown and Tim Twoguns were inside the store later Tuesday afternoon.“We’re speechless,” Twoguns told The Post-Standard of Syracuse. He referred questions to the Cayuga County sheriff.
At a news conference Tuesday, Seneca County District Attorney Richard Swinehart and Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann said the two stores were not on sovereign Indian land or on reservation land, so they must be treated as ordinary private businesses illegally selling untaxed cigarettes.
Swinehart and Budelmann said they acted against the Cayugas based on an Oneida Indians dispute with the city of Sherill. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Indian nations could not claim land they simply bought as sovereign. The two Cayuga stores are on purchased land. Deputies blocked the entrances to both stores, turning customers away while other officers carried out boxes of merchandise and cigarettes for loading onto trailers.
Cayuga Nation takes legal action after raidBy Nate Robson / The Citizen
Sunday, November 30, 2008 11:18 PM EST
After the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office raided two of its convenience stores for untaxed cigarettes last Tuesday, the Cayuga Nation will seek to have any pending felony tax evasion charges dismissed before they are filed on the grounds that the search warrant violated their sovereignty.
The tribe's attorney, Dan French, said his office will argue on Wednesday that a warrant obtained by the sheriffs' and district attorneys' offices in Cayuga and Seneca counties violated a state injunction that limited the enforcement of tax laws on American Indians, and that the Lake Side Trading stores in Union Springs and Seneca Falls are part of a 64,000-acre reservation established in a treaty by President George Washington in the 1794.
The tribe, along with other Indian nations in New York, have claimed they are exempt from collecting sales and excise taxes on their property because their businesses are protected by their sovereign nation status.
The tribe will also argue that all of the evidence collected in the raid, which includes 1.5 million cigarettes, needs to be returned because the search was illegal.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cayuga Indian Nation seeks court order to resume selling cigarettes in Seneca and Cayuga counties
Court hearing to decide if Cayugas may resume sale of tax-free cigarettes.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
By Scott Rapp
Staff writer
It's back to court for the Cayuga Indian Nation in its long-running tax feud with Cayuga and Seneca counties.
On Wednesday, the Cayugas will seek a court order that would allow them to resume peddling tax-free cigarettes at their convenience stores in Union Springs and the town of Seneca Falls.
The nation was forced to stop selling cigarettes Nov. 25 after sheriff's deputies in both counties seized all of their 17,600 cartons of smokes for not paying some $485,000 in state excise taxes on them.
The Cayugas plan to ask state Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Fisher, of Monroe County, for an injunction on grounds that last week's searches were illegal and that the counties are trying to enforce a law that is not in effect, Daniel French, a nation lawyer, said Monday.
The counties say otherwise. They will argue that the Cayugas' LakeSide Trading stores are not on sovereign, tax-free reservation land and that it is illegal to possess and sell unstamped cigarettes on nonreservation land, Seneca County District Attorney Richard Swinehart said.
"We say we have the right to do it; they say we don't. The judge will decide; that's the bottom line," Swinehart said.
The court hearing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. in Cayuga County.
Both counties have been trying for about 31/2 years to force the Cayugas to pay taxes on sales of cigarettes and gasoline at their convenience stores.
The excise tax on the confiscated cigarettes amounts to $27.50 per carton but does not include sales tax. The counties say the Cayugas are driving competitors out of business because the nation can sell their goods at lower, tax-free prices.
"There's no exemption for them not to pay the tax. They're simply evading paying millions of dollars of taxes," Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann said.
The Cayugas own many properties, including the two stores, in their ancestral homeland around the north end of Cayuga Lake. Their application to have the stores and other properties put into federal trust - which would make them sovereign and tax-free forever - is pending before the federal government.
French said the dispute has little to do with whether the
stores are on sovereign, tax-free reservation land.
Instead, the state tax code lists the nation as a "qualified reservation," a designation, he said, that allows for the Cayugas to sell tax-free cigarettes.
Also, French said, a state Supreme Court judge in Buffalo has barred the state from collecting taxes on sales at Native American businesses. The judge issued the injunction in January 2007 because the state failed to issue tax-exemption coupons for Indians who buy goods from Native American merchants, French said.
"Our contention is the law the district attorneys (in both counties) are trying to prosecute is enjoined from being enforced," he added.
The state Taxation and Finance Department has yet to implement a coupon system for collecting taxes from the Cayugas and other Indian merchants, nearly two years after the injunction was issued.