Jump to full article: Community Newspaper Group (YourNabe.com), 2009-11-19
Author: Thomas Tracy
Intro: State Senate Finance Chair Carl Kruger knows how to get some much-needed wampum for New York State — tax the cigarettes being sold on American Indian soil.
On Monday, Nov. 16, the Brooklyn pol personally handed Governor David Paterson a request urging him to rescind a “letter of forbearance” that allows American Indian tobacco retailers to avoid collecting the tax on the cartons they sell.
Kruger said that if the state started collecting these taxes immediately, it could generate about $1.6 billion a year — about half of the state’s current $3.2 billion budget deficit. By December alone, the state could be raking in $135 million, he said.
“Every court in this land has ruled that New York has the lawful right to collect the taxes on these cigarettes,” he said. “These taxes are rightfully owed to the state, but the only thing that prevents this is a forbearance letter issued in 2006 by the Pataki administration that the Spitzer administration and Paterson have not rescinded.”
For Kruger, the forbearance letter permitting American Indians to sell untaxed cigarettes isn’t about reparations for the atrocities brought upon the state’s tribal nations.
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