Agents Seize Cigarettes Headed For Tribal Shop Incident Is The Latest Development In Tax Fight Over Sales On Reservation
Cigarettes worth more than $100,000 at a retail store were seized as untaxed contraband Friday near Spokane.
The cigarettes were destined for sale at a smoke shop on the Puyallup Indian Reservation, near Tacoma, in Western Washington, authorities said.
The seizure is the latest development in the state of Washington’s lengthy tax fight with Indian reservations over the sale of untaxed cigarettes.
State revenue officials have told Indian tribes that their reservation smoke shops won’t be raided because of the sovereign status of tribal lands. But shipments of untaxed cigarettes, destined for the reservations, are subject to seizure when they are spotted, authorities say.
The state collects $8.25 in tax revenue for each carton of cigarettes sold in Washington - except those sold without tax stamps on Indian reservations.
Agents of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, given newly assigned cigarette-tax enforcement powers, stopped a pickup pulling a trailer Friday on Interstate 90, just inside the Washington state line.
They seized 5,890 cartons of cigarettes and $5,800 in cash, authorities said.
The truck and trailer were both loaded with cigarettes which had just been purchased from a distributor in the Coeur d’Alene area, said board spokeswoman Gigi Zenk.
The truck was identified from previous deliveries to a smoke shop on the Puyallup reservation, Zenk said.
Authorities wouldn’t identify the shop, but said it was privately owned.
The name of the suspect also was not released.
Zenk and Carter Mitchell, a senior official with the Liquor Board, said they were forbidden from releasing the suspect’s name because it would violate privacy provisions of tax laws used by the Department of Revenue.
Records at the Spokane County Jail show that James E. Russell, 35, of Fife, Wash., was arrested on a charge of illegally possessing untaxed cigarettes.
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