Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Sac and Fox Nation, 508 U.S. 114, 8 (1993)

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Cite as: 508 U. S. 114 (1993)

Opinion of the Court

sovereign immunity were relevant. The analysis in those cases, the Commission argued, applied only to tribes on established reservations. It reasoned that Oklahoma had complete tax jurisdiction over the Sac and Fox, because the 1891 Treaty had disestablished the Sac and Fox Reservation.

The District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled on cross-motions for summary judgment. The court declined to determine whether the reservation had been dis-established or its boundaries diminished. Instead, it held that the Commission could levy and collect state income tax on the income that nonmembers of the Tribe earned from tribal employment on trust lands, but not on the income that tribal members earned from tribal employment on trust lands. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-10. The District Court did not look to where the tribal members resided; it rested its holding instead only on where they worked. The court also held that the Commission could not require, as a prerequisite to issuing an Oklahoma motor vehicle title, payment of excise taxes and registration fees for the years a vehicle properly had been licensed by the Tribe. Id., at A-11 to A-13.

Both parties appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. 967 F. 2d 1425 (1992). Like the District Court, the Court of Appeals declined to determine the boundaries of the Sac and Fox Reservation. The court read our opinion in McClanahan, supra, to stand for the proposition that, absent express congressional authorization, state jurisdiction to tax "the income of a tribal member earned solely on a reservation is presumed to be preempted," 967 F. 2d, at 1428, and it rejected the State's contention that the residence of the tribal member also was relevant, id., at 1428, n. 3. Thus, the Court of Appeals looked only to the status of the land on which the income was earned—in this case, trust land. In light of Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Citizen Band of Potawatomi Tribe of Okla., 498 U. S. 505 (1991), the court concluded that for tribal immu-

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