Cite as: 534 U. S. 84 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
("A parenthetical is, after all, a parenthetical, and it cannot be used to overcome the operative terms of the statute").
Moreover, the canon that assumes Congress intends its statutes to benefit the tribes is offset by the canon that warns us against interpreting federal statutes as providing tax exemptions unless those exemptions are clearly expressed. See United States v. Wells Fargo Bank, 485 U. S. 351, 354 (1988) ("[E]xemptions from taxation . . . must be unambiguously proved"); Squire v. Capoeman, 351 U. S. 1, 6 (1956) ("[T]o be valid, exemptions to tax laws should be clearly expressed"); United States Trust Co. v. Helvering, 307 U. S. 57, 60 (1939) ("Exemptions from taxation do not rest upon implication"). Nor can one say that the pro-Indian canon is inevitably stronger—particularly where the interpretation of a congressional statute rather than an Indian treaty is at issue. Cf. post, at 100 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). This Court's earlier cases are too individualized, involving too many different kinds of legal circumstances, to warrant any such assessment about the two canons' relative strength. Compare, e. g., Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 675-676 (1912) (interpreting statement in treaty-related Indian land patents that land is "nontaxable" as creating property right invalidating later congressional effort to tax); Squire, supra, at 3 (Indian canon offsetting tax canon when related statutory provision and history make clear that language freeing Indian land " 'of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever' " includes tax); McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Comm'n, 411 U. S. 164, 174 (1973) (state tax violates principle of Indian sovereignty embodied in treaty), with Mescalero, supra (relying on tax canon to find Indians taxable); Choteau, supra (language makes clear no exemption); Five Tribes, supra (same).
Consequently, the canons here cannot make the difference for which the Tribes argue. We conclude that the judgments of the Tenth Circuit must be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
95
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007