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  3. The tax man just can’t seem to get a break these days. Billion-dollar private-equity companies are fighting against President Ob

The tax man just can’t seem to get a break these days. Billion-dollar private-equity companies are fighting against President Ob

admin2015-03-25  70
问题     The tax man just can’t seem to get a break these days. Billion-dollar private-equity companies are fighting against President Obama’s proposal to tax them at higher levels. Congressional Republicans are working to extend Bush-era cuts. And the Taxed Enough Already Party is demonstrating across the country against what it sees as the federal government’s overreach into their pockets. Now American Indians are battling New York Gov. David Paterson over whether the state has the right to tax cigarettes sold on reservations.
    A federal court yesterday halted efforts by New York to start levying the taxes on cigarettes sold to nontribal buyers. Faced with a mounting budget crisis, Paterson had vowed to start bringing in money from reservation sales as soon as today. The Seneca Nation, which asked for the injunction, sees the right to sell tobacco on its land as part of its national sovereignty. "Most Americans don’t understand that reservations are separate from the state," says Greg Gagnon, who is a Chippewa and associate professor of Indian studies at the University of North Dakota. "State jurisdiction is not supposed to extend onto reservations. "
    At issue is more than $150 million in taxes, according to the state’s collection bureau. The tribes have always sold tax-free cigarettes. And sales of tobacco on Native American land has exploded with the increase in national cigarette taxes over the past decade, as non-Indians drove to reservations or ordered over the Internet to avoid paying the $10-per-pack price. At its height in 2005, reservation cigarette sales were more than $2 billion—43 percent of all tobacco sales in the state, according to the tax bureau. New York thinks of all that untaxed money as lost revenue, but the Senecas see it as a backbone of their economy.
    Paterson is not the first governor to tangle with the Indian nations. The administrations of governors George Pataki and Mario Cuomo also tried to bring in funds from the reservations. They caved on the issue after tribal members shut down interstate highways, blocking traffic and setting fires. "It’s been 25 years and somehow the state hasn’t gotten what they are trying for," Seneca Nation president Barry Snyder told Newsweek following yesterday’s ruling. "So they are still coming after us, still trying to come after the Senecas’ economics. "
    The Senecas aren’t the only nation being pushed to pay tobacco taxes. lndian nations in Kansas, Washington, and Oklahoma are involved in court cases to decide cigarette-tax issues, although most Indian nations settled disputes with states years ago, after a series of Supreme Court rulings in the 1980s, which held that states may tax sales to non-Indians.
    If the state succeeds and ends up collecting tax on the Marlboros nontribal people buy, it won’t affect the Seneca much because, says Snyder, "we are planning to get rid of Philip Morris anyway and have the entire business—manufacturing and distribution—all in our nation. We are ultimately going to have no Marlboros, and then there will be no New York state taxes. "
Which of the following is a cause for the explosion of the reservation cigarette sales?
选项 A、The New York state’s policy support.
B、The increase in national cigarette taxes.
C、The $150 million investment from the state.
D、The non-Indians’ abandonment in cigarette sales.
答案B
解析 推理判断题。由题干关键词the explosion of the reservation cigarette sales定位至第三段第三句。该句提及，在过去的十年中，印第安人居住区的烟草税并未随着国家烟草税一起激增，结果导致非印第安人纷纷涌入保留地或者通过网络预订来避免每包香烟10美元的税费，反而言之，国家烟草税的上涨导致了印第安人居住区烟草销售的激增，故答案为[B]。由第二段第二句可知，纽约州是想从印第安人居住区的烟草销售中获利，而非对他们进行政策支持，故排除[A]；第三段首句提及，根据州征收部门，争论涉及的税额在1．5亿美元以上，而非印第安人居住区烟草销售获得1．5亿美元资助，故排除[C]；第三段第三句只是提及非印第安人纷纷涌入保留地或者通过网络预订来避免每包香烟10美元的税费，这并不意味着非印第安人放弃了烟草交易，故排除[D]。
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