Cherokee Chief says no Oklahoma income tax for tribal citizens

CHEROKEE CHIEF SAYS NO OKLAHOMA INCOME TAX FOR INDIANS by Ray Carter - Director, Center for Independent Journalism Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma significantly increases the number of American Indian citizens who may now be exempt from paying Oklahoma state income tax. “There’s nothing new about the law out there on the ability of a state to tax a member of a federally recognized tribe on a reservation,” Hoskin said. “What’s new of course is the scope of the reservation (because) of the McGirt case. So, we can look to existing law and we can see that taxation doesn’t attach to individual Native Americans who live on reservations.” Hoskin made those comments as part of a panel on state tax-and-budget issues hosted by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. The McGirt ruling found that the Muscogee Nation’s reservation was never disestablished. The ruling has since been expanded to include the reservations of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole, and Quapaw, a combined area that covers nearly half of Oklahoma. The affected area is home to roughly 2 million people of which 21 percent are estimated to be American Indian. Members of federally recognized tribes have long been exempted from various forms of state taxation—if they live and work on tribal land. Prior to McGirt, that exemption covered only a small share of individuals working on much more geographically confined areas directly owned by Oklahoma tribal governments. But under McGirt most of eastern Oklahoma is now considered reservation land, regardless of current ownership, potentially expanding the tax exemption to many more individuals. Hoskin conceded that may result in “revenue gaps” for state government. Because of potential exemptions for tribal members on reservation land, the Oklahoma Tax Commission previously estimated that the McGirt decision could slash Oklahoma state tax collections by $72.7 million per year from reduced income tax collections and $132.2 million annually from reduced sales/use tax collections. However, that estimate was based on McGirt applying only to the Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Seminole tribes. The Quapaw reservation has since been declared to have never been disestablished, and similar rulings could occur for other tribes now litigating reservation status. Read more » by Jamison Faught - November 08, 2021 at 09:57AM

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