Judge blocks cigarette tax law

[The Straight Story]

Judge blocks cigarette tax law
By Gale Courey Toensing

Story Published: Jan 2, 2009

Story Updated: Jan 2, 2009
BUFFALO, N.Y. – A cigarette tax bill aimed at forcing reservation smoke shops to collect taxes for the state has been blown away – at least temporarily – with a state Supreme Court ruling blocking the plan.

State Supreme Court Justice Rose Sconiers issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) Dec. 24, that bars the state of New York, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and the Department of Taxation and Finance from enforcing state tax law “in a manner that would restrict the sale of unstamped cigarettes from being sold at wholesale to reservation cigarette sellers.”

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed by attorney Margaret Murphy on behalf of her clients, Day Wholesale Inc., a wholesaler and stamping agent, and Scott B. Maybee, an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians who owns and operates wholesale and retail tobacco businesses licensed by the nation, but the TRO applies universally across the state to all distributors and reservation smoke shops.

“I’m pretty happy about it. I feel pretty good about this,” Murphy told Indian Country Today.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/36998484.html

[sasquatch]

1. Awesome

[Statistical]

2. Despite NY being happy about it....

NY state has no authority to tax or demand a tax on items sold outside it's border.

Indian Reservations are considered outside the border and authority of the state of NY.
No different legal casinos on Native American reservation land despite the reservation being geographically within a state that prohibits gambling.