Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Chickasaw Nation, 515 U.S. 450, 9 (1995)

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458

OKLAHOMA TAX COMM'N v. CHICKASAW NATION

Opinion of the Court

also stresses that "the levy does not reach any value generated by the Tribe on Indian land," id., at 10; i. e., the fuel is not produced or refined in Indian country, and is often sold to outsiders.

We have balanced federal, state, and tribal interests in diverse contexts, notably, in assessing state regulation that does not involve taxation, see, e. g., California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S. 202, 216-217 (1987) (balancing interests affected by State's attempt to regulate on-reservation high-stakes bingo operation), and state attempts to compel Indians to collect and remit taxes actually imposed on non-Indians, see, e. g., Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Flathead Reservation, 425 U. S. 463, 483 (1976) (balancing interests affected by State's attempt to require tribal sellers to collect cigarette tax on non-Indians; precedent about state taxation of Indians is not controlling because "this [collection] burden is not, strictly speaking, a tax at all").

But when a State attempts to levy a tax directly on an Indian tribe or its members inside Indian country, rather than on non-Indians, we have employed, instead of a balancing inquiry, "a more categorical approach: '[A]bsent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it,' we have held, a State is without power to tax reservation lands and reservation Indians." County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, 258 (1992) (citation omitted). Taking this categorical approach, we have held unenforceable a number of state taxes whose legal incidence rested on a tribe or on tribal members inside Indian country. See, e. g., Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976) (tax on Indian-owned personal property situated in Indian country); McClanahan, 411 U. S., at 165-166 (tax on income earned on reservation by tribal members residing on reservation).

The initial and frequently dispositive question in Indian tax cases, therefore, is who bears the legal incidence of a tax.

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