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  38

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. "
In order to avoid loss in taxes, the Senecas

选项 A、let the court decide cigarette-tax issues.
B、decided to cooperate with the non-Indians.
C、would replace the Marlboros with Philip Morris.
D、planned to do the cigarette business all by themselves.

答案D

解析 推理判断题。由题干关键词loss in taxes和the Senecas定位至末段首句。该句提及,塞尼卡人正在计划摆脱菲利普莫里斯牌香烟,并将在他们民族内部建立包括制造与分销在内的整个经济,纽约州的税收也将不复存在,由此可推知,其对抗税收的做法是自我经营烟草交易涉及的所有环节,故答案为[D]。[B]认为其要与非印第安人合作,含义与原文意思相反,故排除;倒数第二段末句虽提及法庭裁决,但是与题干要求的塞尼卡人的做法无关,故排除[A];由末段首句中“我们正在计划摆脱菲利普莫里斯牌香烟”排除[C]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/VG74777K
0

最新回复(0)