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By LOHR McKINSTRY
ELIZABETHTOWN — Essex County lawmakers gathered Monday to drum up support for collecting taxes on tobacco products sold at Native American reservations.
The state should first collect taxes from cigarette sales to non-tribal members before it reduces services and programs, Supervisor George Canon (R-Newcomb) said at a rally on the steps of the Old County Courthouse in Elizabethtown.
A state budget shortfall has Gov. David Paterson proposing the closure of Adirondack Park Visitor Interpretive Centers in Paul Smiths and Newcomb to save money.
"Over the last 20 years, the Visitor Interpretive Centers have hosted almost two million visitors and educated 75,000 students," Canon said.
"At the rate of $1,900 a minute, in just under nine hours of collecting the tax, this program (Visitor Centers) could be restored."
The $1,900-a-minute is what the Enforce the Law-Collect the Tax Coalition, which sponsored the rally, estimates the state loses by not collecting cigarette taxes on reservations. Collect the Tax is a business-sponsored group that plans similar rallies in Ogdensburg and Plattsburgh in coming weeks.
The County Board of Supervisors Finance Committee unanimously passed a resolution Monday morning calling on the state to collect the tobacco taxes.
"This is a leak in the dam," said Canon, who chairs the County Legislative Committee.
State law bans the sale of tax-free cigarettes to those who are not members of a Native American tribe. The Governor's Office has said the taxes should be collected, but the cost of guarding the collectors could be greater than the tax revenue realized.
Paterson proposed an alternative policy last month under which cigarette manufacturers could sell cigarettes only to licensed tax-stamping agents. The stamping agents would pay the taxes directly to the state.
A carton of cigarettes that sells for $60 in a convenience store can cost $40 at a Native American-owned smoke shop on reservation land.
According to the State Office of the Budget, forcing tribes to collect the taxes could generate $65 million a year. Collect the Tax puts it higher, at about $1 billion.
Tobacco sales have become a huge business on reservations, and Indian retailers say thousands of reservation-based jobs would be lost if the taxes had to be collected.
Board of Supervisors Chair Randy Douglas (D-Jay) took the podium to say the state can no longer afford to ignore revenue from Indian tobacco sales.
"Our fiscal responsibility in the state of New York should be how we can increase our revenue. If this had been done 20 years ago we might not be in the fiscal crisis we're in now. We feel strongly (that) New York state should be collecting this revenue."
Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility in Mineville and the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba are also on the chopping block because of state cuts.
"The closing of Moriah Shock, the John Brown Farm and so on will cause a severe economic impact," Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava (R-Moriah) said. "It could end up on the backs of the real-property taxpayer."
He said collecting the taxes on Indian sales could raise enough money in 21 days, using the $1,900-a-minute figure, to keep open all four prisons the governor is proposing to close, including Moriah Shock and Lyon Mountain Correctional Facility.
Scozzafava said their concern is with collecting the taxes on cigarettes manufactured off the reservations, not those made on tribal lands.
"This is a law that's on the books that we hope will be enforced," Supervisor Noel Merrihew III (R-Elizabethtown) said. "This is an opportunity to give some additional revenue."
E-mail Lohr McKinstry at: lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com
