Montana v. Crow Tribe, 523 U.S. 696, 7 (1998)

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702

MONTANA v. CROW TRIBE

Opinion of the Court

44. The amended lease and the royalties for which it provided had an extendable term of ten years, running from June 14, 1972. Id., at 8. Pursuant to the lease, Westmore-land paid the Tribe almost $18 million in royalties through October 1983. Crow Tribe v. United States, 657 F. Supp., at 588.

In July 1975, the State imposed a severance tax and a gross proceeds tax on all coal produced in Montana, including coal underlying the reservation proper and the ceded strip. See Mont. Code Ann. §§ 15-23-701 to 15-23-704, 15-35-101 to 15-35-111 (1979). The severance tax rate applicable to the ceded strip coal was 30 percent of the contract sales price of the coal extracted; 2 the gross proceeds tax rate was approximately 5 percent of the contract sales price. During the relevant periods,3 Westmoreland paid approximately $46.8 million in severance taxes to the State and $11.4 million in gross proceeds taxes to Big Horn County.4 Westmoreland paid these taxes without timely pursuit of the procedures Montana law provides for protests and refunds. App. to Pet. for Cert. 37; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 13-14. The company subsequently agreed, in exchange for $50,000, to dismiss with prejudice any claim of entitlement to a refund of the severance or gross proceeds taxes it had paid to the State or Big Horn County. App. to Pet. for Cert. 37; see also App. 294-296.

In January 1976, some six months after the State imposed its coal taxes, the Tribal Council adopted an ordinance setting out a Crow Tribal Coal Taxation Code. Id., at 79-86. The Tribe's code imposed a 25 percent severance tax on "all

2 The Montana Legislature, post-1985, incrementally reduced the severance tax rate to 15 percent of the contract sales price. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25.

3 For the severance tax, the relevant period is 1975-1982, and for the gross proceeds tax, 1975-1987.

4 Big Horn County collected taxes on its own behalf and for other jurisdictions.

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