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WAGNON v. PRAIRIE BAND POTAWATOMI NATION Syllabus
incidence,” Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Chickasaw Nation, 515 U. S. 450, 458 (emphasis added). Moreover, the States are categorically barred from placing a tax’s legal incidence “on a tribe or on tribal members for sales made inside Indian country” without congressional authorization. Id., at 459 (emphasis added). Even when a State imposes a tax’s legal incidence on a non-Indian seller, the tax may nonetheless be pre-empted if the transaction giving rise to tax liability occurs on the reservation and the imposition of the tax fails to satisfy the Bracker interest balancing test. See, e. g., Central Machinery Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 448 U. S. 160. Pp. 101–102. (b) The Court rejects the Nation’s argument that it is entitled to prevail under Chickasaw’s categorical bar because the fairest reading of the Kansas statute is that the tax’s legal incidence actually falls on the Tribe on the reservation. Under the statute, the tax’s incidence is expressly imposed on the distributor that first receives the fuel. Such “dispositive language” from the state legislature is determinative of who bears a state excise tax’s legal incidence. Chickasaw, supra, at 461. Even absent such “dispositive language,” the Court would none theless conclude that the tax’s legal incidence is on the distributor be cause Kansas law makes clear that it is the distributor, not the retailer, that is liable for the tax. The lower courts and the Kansas agency charged with administering the motor fuel tax reached the same conclu sion. Kaul v. State Dept. of Revenue, 266 Kan. 464, 970 P. 2d 60, distin guished. Pp. 102–105. (c) Also rejected is the Nation’s alternative argument that the Bracker test must be applied irrespective of who bears the Kansas tax’s legal incidence because the tax arises as a result of the on-reservation sale and delivery of fuel. The Nation presented a starkly different, and correct, interpretation of the statute in the Tenth Circuit, arguing that the balancing test is appropriate even though the tax’s legal incidence is imposed on the Nation’s non-Indian distributor and is triggered by the distributor’s receipt of fuel outside the reservation. The Nation’s argument here is rebutted by provisions of the Kansas statute demon strating that the only taxable event occurs when the distributor first receives the fuel and by a final determination by the State reaching the same conclusion. The Nation’s theory that the existence of statutory deductions for certain postreceipt transactions make it impossible for a distributor to calculate its ultimate tax liability without knowing whether, where, and to whom the fuel is ultimately sold or delivered suffers from several conceptual defects. For example, availability of the deductions does not change the nature of the taxable event, the distributor’s receipt of the fuel. Pp. 105–110.
