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Indians of Wisconsin * * * shall be placed to their credit and
may be * * * expended * * * for any purposes that are authorized
by the tribal governing bod[y] thereof and approved by the
Secretary of the Interior." Section 1146 of title 25 then
provides an exemption from Federal income taxes for the foregoing
funds, as follows: "None of the funds that may be distributed
per capita shall be subject to Federal or State income taxes."
(Emphasis added.)
To the extent petitioners may be claiming that the exemption
from Federal income taxes provided in 25 U.S.C. sec. 114619
covers the payments at issue in this case, we disagree. Section
1146 of title 25 by its terms covers only per capita
distributions of the judgment funds. The Oneida Tribe's
expenditure of $60,000 of the judgment funds to purchase the
casino land was not a per capita distribution; that is, it was
not a distribution made to all members of the Oneida Tribe.
Rather, it was a purchase of land from the Tribe members to whom
the land had been allotted. The exemption provided in 25 U.S.C.
19 On brief, petitioners also cite 25 U.S.C. sec. 1401,
which we take to be a reference to the Indian Tribal Judgment
Funds Use or Distribution Act, Pub. L. 93-134, 87 Stat. 466
(1973), codified at 25 U.S.C. secs. 1401-1408 (2000). The act
provides rules of general applicability to the payment of Indian
tribal judgments, including a provision granting exemption from
Federal and State income taxes for such payments (25 U.S.C. sec.
1407). However, these provisions, enacted in 1973, would not
apply to the distributions of the judgment funds at issue herein,
which occurred in 1968.
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