A bipartisan bill filed in the North Dakota legislature would create a framework for the state’s tribes to collect and keep state taxes on alcohol, tobacco and sales tax on the five reservations in North Dakota.
The two bills were written by the legislature’s Tribal Taxation Issues Committee.
However, tribes say they won’t support the bills unless they exempt casinos from state sales taxes. Standing Rock Sioux member and former tribal chairman Ron His Horse is Thunder commented, “It’s a tribal council question and only they can truly answer it.”
The bills are one answer to the tribes’ concerns about fewer federal tax dollars trickling down to the reservations.
Senator Dwight Cook, chairman of the Senate’s Finance and Taxation Committee, who was a primary author of the legislation says it was written to prevent double-taxation and to allow the tribes to keep the proceeds from state taxes, which they current do not collect for the state. Businesses with the reservation not owned by Indians are required to collect the taxes from nontribal persons. “It is up to them to OK the other sources of tax revenue,” the senator told the State.
Three years ago, a similar tax was agreed to between the Standing Rock Tribe and the state, but it fell apart on the issue of taxation of purchases of the tribe’s Prairie Knights Casino. The other tribes are Spirit Lake Sioux, Three Affiliated Tribes, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.
