110
Opinion of the Court
majority held that the 13 parcels allotted to individual Indians under § 3 of the Nelson Act could be taxed so long as the District Court confirmed on remand that they had been patented after passage of the Burke Act proviso, because the explicit mention of "taxation" in the proviso manifested the necessary "unmistakably clear" intent. Id., at 827, 829-830. But the panel majority further held that the eight parcels sold as pine lands or homestead land under §§ 4-6 of the Nelson Act could not be taxed because those sections, "unlike § 3, did not incorporate the GAA or include any mention of an intent to tax lands distributed under them which might become reacquired by the Band in fee." Id., at 829.
Judge Magill concurred with the majority on the taxability of the 13 allotted parcels, but he dissented from the holding that the remaining 8 parcels were not also taxable. In his view, Yakima propounded "the clear rule . . . that alienability allows taxation." 108 F. 3d, at 831.
We granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 944 (1997), to decide whether Cass County may impose its ad valorem property tax on the seven parcels sold as pine lands and the one sold as a homestead to non-Indians.2
II
State and local governments may not tax Indian reservation land " 'absent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it.' " County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S., at 258 (quoting Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973)). We have consistently declined to find that Congress has authorized such taxation unless it has " 'made its intention to do so unmistakably clear.' " Yakima, supra, at 258 (quoting Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S. 759, 765 (1985)). We have determined that Congress has manifested
2 We denied the cross-petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the Band, which sought review of the holding by the courts below that the 13 parcels allotted to Indians under § 3 of the Nelson Act are taxable.
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