The action is the latest in a series by Seneca leaders angry at Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plans to collect an estimated $200 million in tax from reservation sales of gasoline, cigarettes and other goods to non-Indian customers.
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.
“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.
More on the historical record of taxation without assimilation.
