Tobacco.org

Oneida’s tobacco lawsuit  

There's already a temporary court-ordered halt to taxing cigarettes sold by New York's Senecas and Cayugas and now the Oneidas, as expected are federal court, seeking a permanent halt.

Here's the suit:

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EDITORIAL: Smoke and taxes  

Once again, the state's bad budgeting practices come home to roost. But don't blame just a Legislature and governor who play fast and loose with numbers. Blame a budget process that lets them.

Two courts last week blocked, for now, the state's plan to collect taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations to non-Indians. The issue will now wend through the courts; for how long is anyone's guess. . . .

But putting the money in the budget when it was obvious the collections would be delayed was irresponsible. You'd think the state would have learned its lesson in 2008, when Gov. Eliot Spitzer included $200 million in his budget for taxes that were never collected.

This kind of fictional budgeting underscores the need for a better budget process, one with a mechanism -- perhaps, as some have suggested, certification of the validity of the numbers by the state comptroller or an independent budget office. We're all for creativity in approaching the state's problems, but balanced budgets should not be an exercise in creative writing.

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ESMONDE: Bloomberg’s try at humor disses upstate  

This is serious business. Indians whose economy is partly dependent on sales of untaxed cigarettes, and a state government desperate for new revenue, are navigating murky legal waters in search of an acceptable answer. If history is a guide, it may get ugly. It is a tough issue, and I will leave it to the courts to decide where sovereignty ends and taxation begins.

As the taxation dispute comes to a head, I sincerely hope that nobody follows Bloomberg’s jocular advice and reaches for a six-shooter. Unlike in the old Westerns, the emotions are real— and so are the bullets.

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Cigarette tax issue delayed a week 

Several days of testimony are expected to take place next week as two Native American tribes continue their legal quest to quash New York's efforts to collect sales tax for tobacco products sold on sovereign territory.

U.S. Western District Federal Court Judge Richard Arcara set the next round of hearings for Sept. 14 that pits the Seneca Nation of Indians and Cayuga Nation of Indians against the state. The hearings will be held in his chambers, beginning at 10 a.m.

The Senecas and Cayugas are expected to call for witnesses including Robert Odawi Porter, Seneca Nation senior policy advisor, and Jonathan Taylor, president of the Sarasota-based Taylor Policy Group Inc. Taylor is an economist who specializes in Native American commerce issues and is a research assistant for the Harvard Project of American Indian Economics

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Tribe gets no sympathy from senator  

An influential downstate senator says that the Seneca Nation waves its flag of sovereignty only when it is convenient and insists that New York State will not back down from taxing Indian cigarettes.

State Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, contends that the lawsuits filed by Native American retailers have no basis in law and are needlessly adding to New York's already troubling budget deficit.

Kruger, a long-standing champion of the state's efforts to collect taxes from Indian retailers for their sales of cigarettes to non-Indians, added his voice to the debate as part of a letter to U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, one of the judges overseeing the tax case.

"No matter how they twist the facts, the facts are the facts," Kruger said of the Senecas and other upstate tribes during an interview with The Buffalo News.

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Indians win delay in state cigarette taxes 

A state appellate court blocked a new tax on Indian reservation cigarettes that tribal members were calling a drag on their economy.

The court's temporary restraining order, issued on August 31, prevents the state from collecting the $4.35 excise tax from the Seneca and Cayuga reservations. The tax would have gone into effect on September 1 and officials said it could have handed the state almost $200 million in tax revenue.

The Seneca and Cayuga reservations said the new tax uses them like a "piggy bank" and would damage their livelihood and take away their sovereignty by forcing them to charge non-tribal members more for a pack of smokes.

Governor David A. Paterson disagreed and said the new Indian reservation tax would generate funds desperately needed by the cash strapped state.

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Oneida Indian Nation files lawsuit against New York 

The Oneida Indian Nation filed a lawsuit against Governor David Paterson and the Department of Taxation and Finance Tuesday with the Northern District of New York court over the state’s efforts to collect taxes on cigarettes.

The lawsuit, against Paterson, Department of Taxation and Finance Acting Commissioner Jamie Woodward and Office of Tax Enforcement Deputy Commissioner William Comiskey, questions the legality of the state’s action to collect tax on products sold to the Nation and the ability to provide tax-free cigarettes to its members.

The lawsuit outlines a potential $150,000 the Nation could lose a year with the imposition of the state’s collection of cigarette taxes on suppliers.

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Judge stops Seneca tax collection 

The century-old conflict between the Seneca Nation and the State of New York over the issue of cigarette taxation and sovereignty continues as a ruling by a state appellate court suspended the planned $4.25 tax of non-Native citizens purchasing cigarettes.

The tax, which was to begin on September 1, was halted by a temporary restraining order issued by Judge Samuel L. Green of Rochester.

Green's order was a reinstatement of a previous restraining order issued in January 2009, according to state officials. The order will be held for two weeks, at which time both the Seneca Nation and the State of New York will argue their case before the appellate court.

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AUDIO: New York Tribal Cigarette Sales Under Fire 

Tribes in New York are supposed to collect sales tax from any nonnatives who come onto tribal land to buy cigarettes. But the tribes have long refused to collect the tax. When the state announced that it would begin collecting the money on Sept. 1, the two sides ended up in court. A state judge last week postponed the tax collection so he could further consider the matter.

Robert Odawi Porter of the Seneca nation says it is a small victory in a big fight: "These battles have been going on for more than 200 years and we have fought battles over title to our land, the jurisdiction over our lands, our waters and now our commerce. This is one battle of many."

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• Federal judge extends order barring state tax on some cigarette sales by 2 NY Indian nations  

A federal judge Tuesday extended his order blocking the state from taxing two Indian nations' cigarette sales to non-Indian customers while legal challenges to the state's plans continued to mount.

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara scheduled a hearing for Sept. 14 on a lawsuit by the Seneca and Cayuga nations which seeks to prevent the state from imposing its $4.35-per-pack sales tax on cigarettes destined for reservation smokeshops.

In the meantime, the judge extended a temporary order issued last week barring collections at least through next week's hearing. The order had been set to expire Sept. 13.

Also Tuesday, the Oneida Indian Nation of central New York began its own federal challenge of the state tax law, filing a case in New York's northern judicial district, where the St. Regis Mohawk tribe also has a lawsuit pending.

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• NY Cigarette Tax Plans Raise Reservation Tensions  

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.

Protesters then lit tire fires and shut down a 30-mile stretch of the thoroughfare near the Pennsylvania line. More than 150 state troopers swarmed the area in response.

"If you're saying that we can't benefit from your people coming into our territories and helping to build up our economies as well as yours, then we don't want your trucks to come through our territories and benefit your economy," Seneca Ross John said at the Thruway's edge over the rush of traffic last week.

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Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch, NY - Notable Permanent Resident: Samuel Gompers 

Gompers was born in England, in the city of London, on January 26, 1850. His parents were poor Jewish immigrants from Holland. He started working at the age of 10 as a shoemaker, but soon, he changed his profession and became a cigar maker.

He later wrote: "The first home that I remember was in a three-story brick house in London. Like all the other houses in the neighborhood, ours had worn grey with the passing years. My mother and father lived on the ground floor. My paternal grandparents lived in the second story with their four girls and one boy just ten months older than I."

At the age of 13, Gompers and his family immigrated to New York in 1863.

He found out that life was very difficult in the slums of New York. He checked out several cigar making shops. He found that he was not alone, and that there were countless numbers of young boys, like himself, working to help support their families.

Gompers had become a very skilled worker in this profession by 1885. In that same year, he was elected the president of Cigar Makers Union Local 144.

Gompers became the leader of the "Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Councils" in 1881. This organization was struggling at that time. This Federation was restructured in 1886 as the "American Federation of Labor".

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EDITORIAL: Seneca threats 

So much for the rule of law.

State and federal judges have once more blocked New York from taxing cigarettes sold by Indian tribes, extending the endless hiatus that has cost the state billions. . . .

But if the Senecas do resort to violence, then Paterson needs to respond quickly and with appropriate sanctions.

If that means sending state troopers to the reservations -- and simply barring public access to tribal casinos that ignore their tax-collection responsibilities -- then so be it.

The onus will be on the tribes.

The Senecas may comprise, as they contend, a sovereign nation -- but they also have their hands out when it comes to taxpayer-funded school aid, Medicaid assistance and other tax-funded social programs.

That is, they are sovereign when it comes to meeting tax obligations -- but not at all when it comes to consuming tax dollars.

It's long past time for this charade to come to an end.

We trust that Paterson will see that it does.

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Seneca leader urges state to listen to polls  

A Seneca Nation of Indians businessman and Tribal Council member wants to know why New York state leaders are not listening to their constituents.

J.C. Seneca noted a recent poll, done by Zogby International last month, found 68.4 percent of those surveyed think New York state and the federal governments should honor Indian treaties.

"Albany needs to listen to what New York state citizens are saying," Seneca told the OBSERVER in a phone interview last week.

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Our View: Cayugas can’t have it both ways on tax 

We find it curious that the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York has joined in the legal fight against the implementation of a system that would allow the state to collect taxes on sales of cigarettes to non-Indian consumers while preserving tribal members’ rights to purchase them tax-free.

The Cayugas are saying that the whole concept of taxation is a violation of their sovereignty, and they add that being required to collect taxes on non-tribal sales would destroy their business. They no longer seem to care about the existence of a state taxation regulatory system that would preserve tax-free purchases for tribal members by using coupons or a pre-determined tax-free allotment to each tribe. . . .

“The issue in this case is not whether sales taxes are due when non-Indian consumers purchase cigarettes from Indian retailers — they are,” the majority of the state’s highest court wrote. “The issue is whether Indian retailers can be criminally prosecuted for failing to collect the sales taxes from consumers and forward them to the (state Tax) Department. In the absence of a methodology developed by the state that respects the federally protected right to sell untaxed cigarettes to members of the nation while at the same time providing for the calculation and collection of the tax relating to retail sales to non-Indian consumers, we answer this question in the negative.”

That methodology is now in place. Problem solved.

The law is clear.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take another long legal process to make the Cayugas’ and other Indian nations in this state follow that law.

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