A federal judge ordered the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida to turn over financial records to the Internal Revenue Service.

The tribe asserted a sovereign immunity defense to an IRS summons for the information. Judge Alan S. Gold said that didn't protect credit card records of spending by former chairman Billy Cypress.

"[T]he Miccosukee Tribe is attempting to use tribal sovereign immunity as a shield to protect a limited class of records from the scrutiny of the United States,'' Gold wrote, The Miami Herald reported. "This it may not do.'"

The IRS is trying to get the information as part of a probe into whether Cypress paid federal income taxes.

Turtle Talk has posted documents from the case, Miccosukee Tribe v. US.

Get the Story:
Miccosukees ordered to turn over financial records to IRS (The Miami Herald 8/12)

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