OCR Text |
Show !l!his telegram was submitted to the Department July 21,1899, with the following explanation of the inspector's telegram and statement of the views of this office: The law of the Cherokee Nation provides for a tax on hay shipped out of the nation. The question submitted by Inspector Wright wises on account of the provision in section 16 of the Curtis Act granting to an individual the right to use and receive rent from such amount of agrienltural or p z i u ; ! lauds aa would be his just nud reasonable share of the 1a11dso f the natiolr, and that to \vl~iehh is wife and minor children are entitled. As the office views the matter, tho revenne law ol'the nation rolating to the tax or1 hay do not ill any way interiera with the use by the citi. zens of tho nation oi their iusr and reasol~nblc share of tho laucla as provided in section 16 of the act. It is an export tax imposed by the nation to meet the necessities of its government and seems to the office to be a valid tax and would apply to all hay alike, whether taken from Iands in occupancy of citizens and claimed as thew pro rata share or otherwise. The tax only applies to hay shipped out of the nation and it would seem immaterial whether such hay was cut from the public domain or taken from inclosed tracts claimed by citizens as their pro rata share. The matter is submitted, however, to the Department for instruction as to what reply shall be made Inspector Wright on the subject. The Department, July22,1899, concurred in the opinion of this office that the tax imposed by the nation as an export tax was a valid one and applies to all hay alike, and directed that Inspector Wright be instructed aocordingly. Therefore he was telegraphed on July 24,1899, that all hay was liable to tax, and was written on the 25th to the same effect. While the Department is not responsible, through its agents or other-wise, for the collection of taxes in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, except the royalty on coal and asphaltum, further than to sustain the officers of those nations in the lawful pursnit of their duties and in collecting the lawful taxes imposed by the laws of those nations, still it has been necessary for the Department to consider and determine the legality of the taxes sought to be collected by officers of these nations, which has been contested by various parties. Closely associated with the Cherokee hay case was the controversy which wag brought to the attention of this office in a letter of July 1, 1899, from Hou. Green McCurtain, the principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, who reported tbat Inspector Wright had held that the last clause of section 16 of the Curtis Act, which gives the right to citizens to lease their pro rata shares of land and those of their wives and minor children, would iuterfere with the collection of royalty imposed under the laws of the nation on hay that might be cut within that nation on the pro rata share of an individual. July 12,1899, this office took the position that the clause of section 16 of the Curtis Act, to which Inspector Wright referred, does not apply to the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, inasmuch as the effect of the application of that |