The Enforce The Law – Collect The Tax Coalition is a group of associations, businesses and other organizations that share the goal of demanding the state of New York enforce its own laws and collect the excise taxes on cigarettes sold through Native American reservations to non-tribal members.
No Exceptions for Tribally-Manufactured Cigarettes
Soon after the federal appeals court decision upholding the State’s power to begin collecting these taxes, some tribal smoke shops began insisting that cigarettes made on the reservation can be sold to non-tribal members without paying tax and without even following other state laws.
They are wrong. It doesn’t matter where the cigarettes are made or who makes them. If they are sold into New York commerce, they are taxable, and they are subject to regulation.
Leaders in Albany need to understand: it would be a huge setback if the State began collecting taxes from wholesalers who supply tribal retailers, only to then allow those tribal retailers to sell tribally-manufactured products free of tax, without stamps, and without complying with other state laws. Allowing tribal sellers to do this would create a new loophole in the tax system that has no legal basis, and that would create exactly the same problems we are facing today – lost revenues, lost business, and more crime.
We believe the State should enforce the law and collect the tax – NO EXCEPTIONS FOR TRIBAL BRANDS.