County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation

Background

The Yakima Indian Nation sued Yakima County after the county tried to collect annual property (ad valorem) taxes and a sales excise tax on reservation land that had been issued in fee (fee‑patented) during the allotment era. The county had begun foreclosing on parcels for unpaid taxes, which prompted the Tribe to ask courts to stop the taxes. The core dispute is whether federal allotment statutes permit States and counties to tax fee‑patented reservation land.

Reasoning

The Court held that the General Allotment Act and a Burke Act proviso support state ad valorem taxation of land patented in fee because those statutes made such land alienable and thereby subject to taxation. The majority treated property taxes as “taxation of land” and therefore permissible, but it distinguished and invalidated the county’s excise tax on land sales because that tax burdens the act of selling rather than the land itself. The Court left factual questions about which parcels were patented under the allotment statutes for the lower courts to resolve.

Real world impact

The ruling allows counties to continue annual property assessments and possible foreclosures on fee‑patented reservation parcels, while barring sales excise taxes on land transactions by tribal owners. It affects tribal landowners and local governments, and some disputes will return to lower courts for parcel‑by‑parcel determinations because the Court did not decide every factual point.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Blackmun agreed that the sales excise tax must be blocked but dissented from allowing property taxes. He argued the statutes do not show an "unmistakably clear" congressional intent to permit state property taxation of Indian fee lands and warned the decision could harm tribal self‑determination and tribal land holdings.