(SenecaCigarettes.org photo)
Tribes in New York state have been embroiled in the issue of whether the state will start collecting taxes on sales of cigarettes from tribal smoke shops to non-tribal people.
This story from the Buffalo News says it best: tribes such as the Seneca Nation are “seen as cash cows for a cash-starved state government.” It’s estimated those taxes could bring as much as $1 billion a year into state coffers.
Tribes fought earlier efforts to collect the taxes with spirited demonstrations along the New York Thruway in the 1990s. This year the Seneca are upping the ante by pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into efforts to defeat the state senators leading the tax-collection effort.
The Seneca are launching efforts to help defeat the three Senate Republicans whom they call “hostile to the nation’s interests.
Tribal leaders say they’ll try to double a political fund from $500,000 to $1 million, in part to back challenges to the three senators.
Gwen Florio
Tags: buffalo post, cigarette taxes, Native American news, New York, Seneca Nation, Tribal smoke shops
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