Senecas brace for showdown over tax
Snyder tells fellow Indians to start stockpiling supplies for emergency
CATTARAUGUS INDIAN RESERVATION — One month before New York State is scheduled to start collecting taxes on cigarettes sold by Native American retailers, the Seneca Nation of Indians told its people to start stockpiling food and water.
“We want to make sure we are ready,” Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder Sr. said. “The last time we were not ready.”
A law signed by Gov. David A. Paterson last month authorizes the state to require wholesalers to provide certification — under penalty of perjury — to the state tax department that they have complied with state tobacco tax law. It goes into effect Feb. 13, unless court action challenging it is successful.
“The [Seneca Tribal] Council and I believe the state once again is intending to take action to impose an embargo on tobacco products, which poses a grave threat to recent progress the nation made to recover from the historic economic limitations inflicted on the Seneca people by the state and federal governments,” Snyder said Tuesday before about 200 people in the Saylor Building.
In addition to directing Senecas to stockpile provisions, the Tribal Council also authorized Snyder to spend up to $1 million to retain and train “emergency response personnel.” Also Tuesday, the nation filed an action in the Seneca Peacemakers Court to declare the Thruway an “illegal invasion of sovereign nation territory.” The Senecas also announced plans to collect tolls on the Thruway in Irving.
The council also directed Snyder to inform incoming President Barack Obama of the “pending threat” by New York State and ask him to provide federal troops to protect the Seneca people.
The state tried to collect taxes on tobacco products sold to non-Native Americans in July 1992 and May 1997, which resulted in protests on Seneca land that closed down the Thruway, triggering violent clashes with state police.
“If we were ready back then, a lot of things that happened to our people would not have happened,” Snyder said. “To us it was like an embargo, when you can’t come and go freely.”
The emergency response personnel would function almost like a civil patrol, Snyder said, responding not only to actions that might result from the tax issue, but also would be activated in blizzards, floods and other storms.
“These people are under my direction. They will not be used until I call them. If they’re not trained, with the proper uniform and credentials, they won’t be able to respond,” he said.
This group of up to 100 people would be military veterans who would not be armed or trained in conflict, he said, adding they would make sure children get to school and citizens can go about their daily activities without interference.
“We are a peaceful nation,” he said.” We do not seek conflict with the state, nor its police.”
Snyder said the council wants to “devise a system” to collect tolls on the Thruway in Irving. The Senecas already have billed the state for $20 million in tolls, $1 for each car passing through the Cattaraugus Reservation on the Thruway. New York has not paid it, and the Senecas want to double that toll.
“We would like to collect the tolls,” Snyder said. “I don’t trust the state’s accounting.”
In addition to serving as president, Snyder is the longtime operator of one of the Senecas’ most successful tobacco sales operations.
He said the nation’s $313 million retail sector provides more than 1,000 jobs.
Paterson has taken the position that a 1994 U. S. Supreme Court decision gives the state the right to collect the taxes on products sold to non-Indians. He hopes the revenue will help close the state’s mounting deficit.
Seneca Nation counsel Robert Odawi Porter has said the Senecas do not recognize the court’s 1994 decision.
Meanwhile, James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, pointed to the Supreme Court decision in defending the state’s decision to collect taxes.
“Mr. Snyder’s statement is one of the most stirring works of fiction I have ever read,” he said. “Invasion? Incursion? Hide the women and children? Please.”
“Licensed, tax-collecting retailers whose businesses have been ravaged by rampant cigarette and motor-fuel tax evasion abetted by the Seneca Indian Nation commend [Paterson] for his efforts to restore tax fairness,” he said.
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