Tribe threatens tax retaliation

BUFFALO, N.Y. – You want to tax us? We’ll tax you back.

The Seneca Indian Nation said Thursday it will start charging the state a $1 toll for each vehicle that travels on the New York State Thruway in response to a proposal that would tax reservation sales of gasoline, cigarettes and other goods to non-Indian customers.

A stretch of the highway crosses the tribe’s land in western New York.

“If New York state would just abide by their word and leave us alone, I think we’d get along much better,” J.C. Seneca, co-chairman of the nation’s Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday.

The move is the latest in a series of Seneca reactions to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan, which is expected to bring $200 million into the state.

Motorists wouldn’t have to pay the tax directly. The tribe plans to send the state a monthly bill for the tolls based on the state Thruway Authority’s usage figures. Seneca leaders looked into buying a set of toll booths that are being removed from a Buffalo highway but were told they were not for sale.

The state is not inclined to pay the tribe’s tolls.

“Needless to say, the Seneca Nation has no legal basis for imposing a fee on vehicles using the Thruway,” Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Pritchard said.

About 20 million vehicles drove along the 60-mile stretch of Thruway between Ripley and Lackawanna in western New York last year, according to Seneca. The tribe estimates a good portion of those passed through its territory, which is only about three miles of that stretch.

Last month, the 8,000-member tribe rescinded the 1954 agreement that allowed construction of the Thruway along 300 acres of Seneca territory in the Cattaraugus Reservation. The tribal council said the pact, which paid the Senecas $75,000, had not received the proper federal approvals.