Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145 (1973)

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW MEXICO

Syllabus

The State of New Mexico may impose a nondiscriminatory gross receipts tax on a ski resort operated by petitioner Tribe on off-reservation land that the Tribe leased from the Federal Government under § 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U.S.C. § 465. Though § 465 exempts the land acquired from state and local taxation, neither that provision nor the federal instrumentality doctrine bars taxing income from the land. But § 465 bars a use tax that the State seeks to impose on personalty that the Tribe purchased out of State and which, having been installed as a permanent improvement at the resort, became so intimately connected with the land itself as to be encompassed by the statutory exemption. Pp. 147-159.

83 N.M. 158, 489 P.2d 666, affirmed in part and reversed in part.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. DOUGLAS, J., filed an opinion dissenting in part, in which BRENNAN and STEWART, JJ., joined, post, p. 159.