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Syllabus
cause, under Yakima, if Congress has made Indian land freely alienable, States may tax the land. The Eighth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that the parcels allotted to Indians could be taxed if patented under the Burke Act proviso, which made "unmistak-ably clear" Congress' intent to allow such taxation, but that the eight parcels sold to non-Indians could not. Only those eight parcels are at issue here.
Held: State and local governments may impose ad valorem taxes on reservation land that was made alienable by Congress and sold to non-Indians, but was later repurchased by the tribe. Pp. 110-115.
(a) Congress' intent to authorize state and local taxation of Indian reservation land must be " 'unmistakably clear.' " Yakima, supra, at 258. Congress has manifested such an intent when it has authorized reservation lands to be allotted in fee to individual Indians, making the lands freely alienable and withdrawing them from federal protection. This was the case in both Yakima and Goudy v. Meath, 203 U. S. 146. The Goudy Court concluded that, because it would be unreasonable for Congress to withdraw federal protection and permit an Indian to dispose of his lands as he pleased, while releasing the lands from taxation, Congress would have to "clearly manifest" such a contrary purpose in order to counteract the consequence of taxability that ordinarily flows from alienability. Id., at 149. The Yakima Court found that both the Burke Act proviso and § 5 of the GAA manifested an unmistakably clear intent to allow state and local taxation of allotted land. The Eighth Circuit thus erred in concluding that Yakima turned on the Burke Act proviso's express reference to taxability. Both it and Goudy stand for the proposition that when Congress makes reservation lands freely alienable, it is unmistakably clear that Congress intends that land to be taxable by state and local governments, unless a contrary intent is "clearly manifested." Yakima, supra, at 259. Pp. 110-113.
(b) The foregoing principle controls the disposition of this case. By providing for the public sale of reservation land to non-Indians in the Nelson Act, Congress removed that land from federal protection and made it fully alienable. Under Yakima and Goudy, therefore, it is taxable. The Eighth Circuit's contrary holding attributes to Congress the odd intent that parcels conveyed to Indians are taxable, while parcels sold to the general public remain tax exempt. Contrary to the Band's argument, a tribe's subsequent repurchase of alienable reservation land does not manifest any congressional intent to reassume federal protection of the land and to oust state taxing authority, particularly when Congress relinquished such protection many years before. Further,
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