Property Taxation of Indian Land After County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal,Washington
• Citation: Vol. 16 No. 03
• Publication year: 1993

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 16, No. 3SPRING 1993

RECENT DEVELOPMENT

Property Taxation of Indian Land After County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation

Robert W. McGee(fn*)

In 1987, Yakima County, Washington, initiated foreclosure proceedings on properties belonging to the Yakima Indian Nation and its members. The county's foreclosure was precipitated by the property owners' failure to pay past due ad valorem and excise taxes. Despite vigorous arguments by the Yakima Nation, the United States, and the thirty-one Yakima Indian families likely to be rendered homeless by an adverse decision, the United States Supreme Court held in County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation,(fn1) that states have the power to impose ad valorem taxes on reservation land owned in fee by Indians.(fn2) This Recent Development provides a brief summary of that decision.

The Yakima Indian Reservation consists of about 1.3 million acres and is located in southeastern Washington. The United States holds eighty percent of the land in trust for the benefit of the Tribe or its individual members, and the other twenty percent is owned in fee by either the Tribe, individual members, or non-Indians.(fn3) Virtually all of the reservation is within Yakima County.(fn4)

Yakima County imposes ad valorem taxes on real estate and excise taxes on the sale of real estate.(fn5) It has imposed and collected these taxes on the Reservation's fee lands without incident for decades.(fn6) This changed in 1987, when Yakima County initiated foreclosure proceedings against parties who had not paid their ad valorem or excise taxes. These attempts at collection caused the Yakima Nation to file suit for declaratory and injunctive relief. The Tribe claimed that federal law prohibited the imposition or collection of these taxes on fee-patented lands that were held either by the Tribe or its members.(fn7)

The District Court awarded the Tribe summary judgment and prohibited Yakima County from imposing or collecting taxes on fee-patented lands.(fn8) The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that an excise tax could not be imposed; however, it held that an ad valorem tax would be impermissible only if it would have a " 'demonstrably serious' " impact on the " 'political integrity, economic security, or the health and welfare of the tribe.' "(fn9) The Ninth Circuit remanded the case to the District Court for such a determination. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether the tax was proper.(fn10)

Previously, the Supreme Court has held that states do not have the power to tax reservation lands and reservation Indians absent cession of jurisdiction or a federal statute that would permit taxation.(fn11) The Court has also historically withheld recognition of Congressional authorization to allow state taxation unless the intent of Congress is unmistakably clear.(fn12) In light of these holdings, Yakima County argued that Section 6 of the General Allotment Act(fn13) provided the county with express authority to tax the fee-patented lands.(fn14) Section 6 of the Act provides:At the expiration of the trust period and when the lands have been conveyed to the Indians by patent in fee, . . . then each and every allottee shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside . . . . Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, and he is authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Indian allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee a patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, incumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed.(fn15)

In accepting Yakima...