American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Felix Cohen defined a tribe's taxing authority as "an inherent attribute of tribal sovereignty" essential to its political survival. This broad taxing power has emerged as one dimension of tribal sovereignty that has enabled a tribe to maintain its political separation from state and county governments. In addition, the extent of a tribe's assessment power applied to both tribal members and nontribal residents of a reservation, and that power alone, often prohibited a state from assessing property found inside a reservation. Today, this distinction has made complex conflicts out of tribal tax and state tax confrontations as both tribes and states compete for potential revenues from reservation sources. Problems inherent in federalism aggravated this conflict. Robert C. Brown, an attorney, identified this problem in 1931, writing, "Our dual system of state and nation rarely fails to confuse any governmental problem, and it has not been without its customary effect on this one." On one hand, the United States Constitution defined a state-federal union; on the other hand, treaties created a unique tribal-federal relationship. In the former, an interacting association developed between federal, state, and county authorities that resulted in tax cooperation; in the latter, an exclusive relationship evolved between the federal and tribal governments that precluded states and counties. Within these two differing political systems, each sovereign maintained its own jurisdiction, which often intersected and crossed into the domain of another.