Indians DO Pay Taxes!

Here is a recent decision from the U.S. Tax Court called Green v. Commissioner. From the opinion:

When income payable to a person is shunted away to pay a debt, it normally still counts as taxable income. This is just what happened to Green in the years at issue here-1997, 1999, and 2000. But Green never filed Forms 1040 for those years. Nor did he make estimated income tax payments. Instead, as he had done since at least 1991, he sent to the IRS documents called “Treaty-Based Return Position Disclosure Under Section 6114.” In these documents, he claimed that he was exempt from taxation under an 1815 treaty between the United States and the Potawatomi tribe. [footnote 6 is here — interesting reading] Treaty with the Potawatomies, Sept. 8, 1815, art. 2, 7 Stat. 131. A footnote in a much tinier font set out his income for each year. Accompanying the big-font, little-font assertion of his tax-exempt status was a cover letter, a summary of purported legal arguments for his treaty-based return position, a photocopy of the regulations applicable to section 6114, copies of computer screen printouts that Green claims show the Commissioner’s agreement with his decision not to file returns, a long article written by Green himself describing his belief that tribal Potawatomi are exempt from income tax, and copies of caselaw supposedly supporting his arguments.