Can Tribes Get a Receipt?: Seeking Transparency for State Spending of Tribal Tax Dollars

Each year states collect hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue from Indian country. While tribes view state taxation as an infringement upon their sovereignty, state taxation presents another issue. That is, states take the tribal tax dollars and spend the money outside of Indian country. Meanwhile, Indian country’s infrastructure is significantly underdeveloped, and many tribes struggle to provide essential government services. Tribes have unsuccessfully challenged state taxation for years. Accordingly, this Article makes a more modest proposal: if states are allowed to tax tribes, states should be subjected to fiscal transparency requirements. This Article asserts that when a state taxes Indian country commerce, the state should be obligated to provide the tribe with a report accounting for the total tax revenue collected and expended within Indian country.