“So, if NYS was to tax New Yorkers buying goods on reservations they would not be violating any treaties—simply enforcing a law already in place. This would only be a violation of a treaty if NYS was to tax Native Americans for goods they purchase on their reservations, which NY has no intention of doing.”
The problem with this and the enforcing of this law is that the Native Americans themselves would have to collect the tax money. Being dependent sovereign nations, I believe that if anybody was going to collect the tax and use it, they should be them. If New York State wants to collect more taxes, then they should go ahead and try to figure out how to do it on their own rather than using someone else to do the “dirty work”. Besides New York State needs to realize that the tax problem they have is a result of excessive taxing to begin with, not the sales that take place with the reservation not being taxed. The whole thing has developed into a vicious cycle, where taxes go up to make more money for the state and people leave, the state loses money and then the state needs more money the taxes go up again. To even make the suggestion that taxing reservations would make anything but an insignificant impact on the overall issues surrounding the budget, is almost laughable if it were not so sad.
Great observations, Geoff. As we can see, the issue of taxation on reservations is quite complex and there is no easy solution.
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