BUFFALO -New York- A judge on Wednesday extended a temporary order preventing the state from following through with plans to tax cigarettes sold on American Indian reservations to non-Indian customers while she considers the Seneca Nation's challenge to the rules governing collections.

The Senecas want Erie County Judge Donna Siwek to throw out the regulations and force the state tax department to rewrite them. Seneca attorney Carol Heckman argued the department didn't follow its own rules because it didn't consider the negative impact they would have on the western New York tribe and its businesses.

Wednesday's hearing didn't address the tribe's longstanding opposition to the tax itself.

"If the procedures are not followed, the regulations are null and void," Heckman said.

Andrew Bing, an attorney for the state, said tax officials did follow the rules. Any impact to the economy or jobs picture would be the result of the Legislature's decision to impose the $4.35-per-pack sales tax, not the rules the department would use to enforce it, he said.

Siwek said she would issue a written decision within a week.

Last month, just as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration was preparing to begin collecting tax on smoke shop sales statewide, anticipating $500,000 a day in revenue, the Senecas won the temporary restraining order now in place.
It's the latest face-off in a dispute between New York and American Indian tribes that dates to 1988. The Indian nations argue that as sovereign nations they're exempt from taxation, while the state says it has the right to tax non-Indian customers.