Editorial: New York must collect reservation taxes

Monday, August 20, 2007  

"Asked by the O-D Editorial Board last week about progress on collecting taxes on sales to non-Indians at Indian businesses, Gov. Eliot Spitzer came up with an unusual description.

He spoke a bit about the dynamics surrounding the proposed change, and said that state officials and Indian nations have held some "marginally useful" conversations on the topic. And, as Forrest Gump would put it, that was all he had to say about that.

The self-proclaimed steamroller had clearly put himself in idle on the Indian sales tax issue.

That's unfortunate. Continued delays hurt businesses that compete with Native American stores that traditionally do quite a business in selling cigarettes and gasoline.

Continued delays hurt the Indian businesses themselves, which are operating under artificially conducive circumstances that at some point have to end.

And continued delays hurt the very rule of law that is so central to our democracy. If government does not enforce the law in one instance, then why should it be expected to enforce it in another? That's a slippery slope down which society should never slide."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Spitzer must be firm on Indian taxes (The Utica Observer-Dispatch 8/20)