By JAMES FINK
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

The Seneca Nation of Indians vowed to continue to the legal fight against New York's efforts to collect taxes on tobacco sales made on sovereign territory, despite a ruling that clears the way for the controversial collections to begin.

The New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, ordered a temporary restraining order Tuesday that prevented New York from collecting the taxes lifted. The order had been issued by state Supreme Court Justice Donna Siwek.

The ruling focused on the Seneca Nation of Indians and, on a lesser extent, to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which filed amicus briefs in the case. It will affect all Indian nation tribes across New York, however.

The Appellate Court ruling now allows New York the right to collect a nearly-year-old sales tax on tobacco sales made on sovereign Indian territory to non-Indians. The tax, which went into effect in September across New York, amounts to $4.35 per pack of cigarettes and is expected to generate more than $100 million in annual revenues for the cash-starved state.

State officials said they expect to begin collecting the taxes immediately.

Meanwhile, Robert Odawi Porter - an attorney and president of the Seneca Nation, as well as an expert on Native American tribal rights - said he expects to file legal documentation with the New York State Court of Appeals concerning the Appellate Court ruling. They will be seeking a new stay or temporary restraining order that bars New York from collecting the tax.

"We will continue to block the state's long-standing crusade to confiscate our national wealth, sacrifice native and non-native jobs and interfere with our way of life," Porter said in a prepared statement. "For more than 200 years, the Seneca Nation has thwarted New York State's efforts to steal our land, destroy our sovereignty, and tax commerce in our territories. In our treaties with the United States, we gave up most of our land to retain the 'free use and enjoyment' to conduct business in our remaining territories free from the state's taxes. New York will never collect a cent of revenue from tobacco sales occurring in our territories, and revenue projections so indicating are foolishness."

Porter said the Seneca Nation will embark on a "new era" by manufacturing and selling its own brand of cigarettes. Traditional premium brands of cigarettes will not be sold from businesses operating on sovereign territory.

Porter said he wants to make sure the Seneca's tobacco economy is "sustained and regulated."

The Senecas employ more than 1,000 people who work in various tobacco and cigarette manufacturing operations.