QUAPAW, Okla. – In the face of a protracted taxation fight, a central Oklahoma tribe is urging other tribes to come together and protect their business interests before state and local governments attempt to help themselves.
“The wolf is at the door,” Citizen Potawatomi Nation Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett said before the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas at its Sept. 19 regular meeting at Downstream Casino. “We’re all facing imminent action from the Oklahoma Tax Commission…if we’re exercising any authority not readily tied to federal trust land.”
Citing slumping revenue streams, Shawnee city officials have been trying for several months to collect sales tax dollars associated with tangible purchases made by non-Natives at tribal properties with a Shawnee mailing address. The Absentee Shawnee Tribe, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma and Sac and Fox Nation each have at least one business that would potentially be impacted if the city is successful.
As per a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court decision, tribes do not have to remit state sales taxes on purchases made by tribal citizens at tribally-owned businesses located on reservations or trust land. However, the decision does not say anything about taxes levied by county or municipal governments. The decision is also silent on how states are to collect tax revenue generated by non-tribal citizens, leading the City of Shawnee to request the tribes to remit a regular payment and essentially be the city’s tax collectors.
One of the biggest employers in Pottawatomie County, about 2,400 people work for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, which has an estimated annual economic impact of more than $522 million. The tribe’s grocery store alone does an estimated $45 million in sales annually.
Since the fight began earlier this year, the largest of the four tribes, the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, has announced plans to officially de-annex from the City of Shawnee. The area around the tribe’s complex on Shawnee’s southern side was unofficially annexed in the early 1960s with no public notice given. However, since the tribe formally filed its petition, a November referendum has been scheduled that if passed, would amend the Shawnee city charter to require any detachment efforts to go before a vote of the people rather than just the city commission.
As an added bonus, the Shawnee City Commission agenda for Sept. 15 – just four days before the UINOKT meeting – initially included an item about “discussion, consideration and possible action regarding possible conflictions of interest between commission members and tribal nations.” Two members of the city commission are tribal citizens.
Offered by Commissioner Keith Hall, the agenda item was originally supposed to be targeted only at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation but was tweaked by the city’s attorney. The item was ultimately tabled – as was a proposal to defund the city’s legal expenses in the fray -- but is expected to resurface on a later agenda.
Other suspicious events have happened to the tribe and its supporters since the fight started, including a water line under the tribe’s heritage center being turned on earlier this year after it was supposedly disconnected from the pipe network. The water pressure was high enough to raise the building’s concrete floor 12 inches before bursting through and causing massive damage to the building and its collection. However, there is not enough evidence to lay blame at anyone’s feet and no one has stepped forward.
In a show of solidarity with the four tribes, UINOKT is tentatively planning to have its winter meeting in Shawnee in early December.
“It is evident that racism has reared its head,” Comanche Nation Chairman Wallace Coffey said. “I firmly believe it needs to be purged or it will tear that community (Shawnee) apart if it hasn’t already.”
