Wisconsin Taxes Don’t Apply to Reacquired Native Land (1)

The one-time act of selling reservation property that was included in an 1854 tax immunity treaty agreement to someone who is not Native American doesn’t mean later tribal property owners can’t claim the immunity, an appeals court ruled.

Judge Michael Y. Scudder Jr. of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit noted that no federal circuit court had previously ruled on whether selling tax-exempt tribal land to non-tribal members surrendered the land’s tax immunity for all future tribal owners. The land parcels at issue, which the state of Wisconsin sought to tax, were part of ...