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MAY 22, 2000

The Crow Tribe of Montana faces two court challenges to its 4 percent resort tax imposed on businesses that lie within their reservation boundaries. A recent 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a similar tax on the Navajo Nation may have an effect in favor of the tribe, but opponents to the tax say the Crow has no right to impose tax on non-Indian business on fee lands.

Fee lands are lands that lie within the reservation, but are no longer owned by the tribe. Fee lands create what is known as a "checkerboard" pattern, causing problems in civil and criminal jurisdiction on reservations which had their lands allotted.

The Crow Tribe has appeals filed in the US District Court in Billings, Montana and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Get the Story:
10th Circuit ruling casts light on Crow tax case (The Billings Gazette 5/22)