By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Convenience store owners across the state say tax avoidance by Native American businesses is taxing their patience. The Alliance for the Fair Application of Cigarette Taxes, or FACT, launched a statewide publicity campaign Wednesday in Buffalo.
The FACT Alliance says the state's failure to collect taxes on sales to non-Native Americans is costing them and the state millions of dollars. But FACT says those losses are being passed down to all New Yorkers.
"Forty-percent of the cigarettes that are purchased by New Yorkers are purchased from untaxed sources," said Calvin. "And the resulting loss of revenue to New York and the resulting loss of state aid to schools is having an impact on everyone's property taxes."
And he says lost sales taxes jump to as much as 70 percent in Western New York where Indian Reservations are nearby. Fuel costs about forty cents less per gallon at tax-free Indian reservations. And smokers save about $2.00 per pack buying cigarettes there.
FACT member Mike Newman, executive vice president of NOCO, says it's also costing local jobs when stores close because they can't compete with non-taxed Native American businesses.
"Particularly in the upstate economy, when we're all trying to find tax dollars to an ever shrinking population, unfortunatey, we're really impacted here," said Newman. "And we've talked to the county about it too, because on the sales tax issue, it's a big issue, it's a really big number."
The alliance will be putting up thousands of posters, lawn signs and counter displays to help increase public awareness of the issue. Members say they hope public pressure will force the governor to stop delaying the law that would level the playing field by collecting taxes on sales to non-Native Americans.