546US1
Unit: $U11
[08-22-08 15:19:53] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 95 (2005)
113
Opinion of the Court
have permitted the taxation of the gross receipts of an off reservation, Indian-owned ski resort, Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145 (1973), and the taxation of in come earned by Indians working on reservation but living off reservation, Chickasaw, 515 U. S. 450. In these cases, we have concluded that “[a]bsent express federal law to the contrary, Indians going beyond reservation boundaries have generally been held subject to nondiscriminatory state law otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State.” Mescalero Apache, supra, at 148–149; Chickasaw, supra, at 465 (quot ing Mescalero Apache, supra, at 148–149). If a State may apply a nondiscriminatory tax to Indians who have gone be yond the boundaries of the reservation, then it follows that it may apply a nondiscriminatory tax where, as here, the tax is imposed on non-Indians as a result of an off-reservation transaction. In these circumstances, the interest-balancing test set forth in Bracker is inapplicable. Cf. Blaze Constr., 526 U. S., at 37 (declining to apply the Bracker interest balancing test “where a State seeks to tax a transaction [on reservation] between the Federal Government and its non-Indian private contractor”). The application of the interest-balancing test to the Kan sas motor fuel tax is not only inconsistent with the special geographic sovereignty concerns that gave rise to that test, but also with our efforts to establish “bright-line stand ard[s]” in the context of tax administration. 526 U. S., at 37 (“The need to avoid litigation and to ensure efficient tax administration counsels in favor of a bright-line standard for taxation of federal contracts, regardless of whether the contracted-for activity takes place on Indian reservations”); cf. Chickasaw, supra, at 460 (noting that the legal incidence test “ ‘provide[s] a reasonably bright-line standard’ ”); County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, 267–268 (1992). Indeed, we have recognized that the Bracker interest-balancing test
