Editorial: Time to collect tobacco taxes from tribes in New York
Monday, April 4, 2011
Filed Under:
Opinion
"Gov. Cuomo's budget anticipates income of some $130 million from the taxation of cigarette sales on Indian reservations. But he's the fifth straight governor to harbor such plans -- and nary a nickel's been collected so far.
When his father, Mario Cuomo, tried to collect cig taxes from the Senecas in 1992, tribesmen lit fires on the Thruway.
In 1997, they repeated the trick for Gov. Pataki -- and attacked state troopers who had surrounded the reservation.
Flash forward to last year: The state was supposed to start collecting the taxes on Sept. 1. But that didn't happen, thanks to injunctions from the courts.
And there will be more holdups still: Just two weeks ago, a district court judge extended his restraining order barring the tax collection . . . indefinitely."
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