Copyright © 1998-1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Byrd appointees to the Tax Commission have fabricated an issue which seems intended to pressure the six of us to attend a council meeting. The Byrd camp is desperate to get a budget passed approving attorney bills run up which were never provided for by the previous budget. Those familiar with the situation recollect questionable attorney fees set off the current "crisis".

The fabricated issue concerns the interpretation of the tax law passed in 1993. A provision of the law provides for a 3% tax on retail sales. The law was never intended to apply to tobacco and cigarettes and never before has anyone ever come up with the novel interpretation that the Byrd appointees have given the law. Now that they have discovered this failure to collect the proper amount of tax the Tax Commission, according to the Byrd appointed chairman, feels compelled to enforce the law and collect the back taxes unless the council meets and adopts the act correcting the mistake.

The inference he left (after prompting by Don Crittenden) was that the tax commission would have to proceed to "enforce the law" unless the council has a quorum at the next meeting to adopt the act intended to correct the "Problem".

The effect of imposing the tax will put most shops out of business because the liability will be so great no owners could come up with the money and imposition of the tax will remove the narrow pricing advantage which makes the tribal shops competitive and allows them to be profitable.

Of course, Harley Terrell appointed member of the Council representing (supposedly) Cherokee County, expressed his idea that the shops ought to "Pay what they owe" to the Cherokee people. He opined that the smoke shops don't help Cherokees but rather hurt them. By Harley's logic we should just tax the smoke shops out of business and leave all the tax to the state, and all the business to Wal-mart. But then let's just consider the source and get back to the main issue which is explaining this fabricated issue with it's fabricated urgency.

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I OBTAINED A COPY OF THE RECORDING OF THE MEETING

Several factors to consider in regard to this matter:

1. No other tax commission has come up with this novel interpretation of the law, only the Byrd appointees.

2. The tax commissioner who brought this matter forward has been seated for 6 months and hasn't felt compelled to enforce the law until just now. Perhaps good sense will lead the Tax Commission to back off enforcement of the the law (as they interpret it) until the chief can call a special meeting to address that particular issue or until the Tribal Council does determine to meet whenever that might be.

3. A Council committee has referred the act making the adjustments necessary (to satisfy the current commissioners) to the Tribal Council for approval. Harley Terrell was the only dissenting vote in this measure which is supposed to direct the tax commission to make settlements for back taxes due from smoke shop owners for a nominal sum $1 or $50 were amounts discussed. It was understood and agreed upon that all owners could settle for the same amount.

4. If the Byrd administration refuses to set up a special meeting for purposes of adopting the proposed corrective legislation and the Tax Commission proceeds to attack the smoke shop owners (the gooses which lay the golden eggs) then the owners might look to the court for some sort of injunction while they press forward a judicial ruling concerning whether the retail tax is indeed applicable to cigarettes and tobacco which are covered under a tax specific to them. Any examination of legislative intent will indicate that nobody contemplated the sort of novel interpretation now being put forth by the Byrd appointed tax commissioner.

5. Imposition of this new found tax retroactively will put most of the smoke shops out of business or at the very least work tremendous hardship on them. Two of the smoke shop owners are members of the Tribal Council. Isn't this a nice way to put them in a financial bind? Just come up with some ridiculous interpretation of the law and figure you can bully them into allowing payment of a million or so dollars in attorney bills to well connected Washington D.C. lawyers never budgeted for and never authorized.

6. This is just the start of what the Byrd regime will come forward with to deflect attention from their own misdeeds as election time draws nigh. The Byrd regime now pays Councilman Crittenden's nephew a healthy sum to be their "spin doctor", with Cherokee money. The six of us just get help from whatever source we can find to help get the word out. Thankfully many members of the press have good noses for the stuff generated by the Byrd regime and don't accept everything emulating from the complex as accurate.