ND: State and reservations looking to share alcohol, tobacco tax revenue
By Daniela Hurtado
March 5, 2019
BISMARCK, N.D. – A bill discussing a tax agreement between the state and the tribes is in the works.
The bill aims to share tax revenue from tobacco and alcohol sales on the reservations.
The tax on alcohol across the state is 7 percent. The reservations say they haven’t gotten revenue for those sales since it became legal.
Tribal members are asking the state to come to an agreement where both of them would benefit from the tax on goods.
A tax agreement on alcohol and tobacco that could benefit the state and the reservations could be coming.
“We felt that we couldn’t keep going without collecting any taxes at all. We have too many needs and too many costs to bare,” said MHA Nation Chairman Mark Fox.
Through the bill tribes would have a choice to enact an ordinance to mirror the 7 percent state alcohol tax but they will share the revenue.
“We look at it as a service to them. That if they want to impose an alcohol retail tax or tobacco tax we’re already administering it, we have the system in place this would just allow us to collect a tax that they would impose,” said North Dakota Tax Commissioner Ryan Raushenberger.
Raushenberger says this would create a uniform tax system. The money would be divvied back out to the tribes through an equation: the quarterly retail tax collections statewide per capita multiplied by the number of people enrolled in the tribe at that time.
This would allow the state to send back the amount paid within the boundaries of the reservations.