Friday,  December 14, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 149 • 14 of 33 •  Other Editions

News from the

Contractors donates shoes to SD reservation

• PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) -- A Colorado-based construction company working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota has donated more than 400 pairs of shoes to students at a local school.
• The Rapid City Journal reports (http://bit.ly/UBOtR8) that Arvada, Colo.-based Milender White Construction Co. and its subcontractors donated 435 wrapped boxes of shoes to students at Pine Ridge Elementary.
• Milender White is overseeing construction of the $31 million Pine Ridge Justice Center going up on the southern edge of town.
• Vice President Adam Mack says the gift giving is part of the company's mission to give back to the community they have been working in.
• Nine-year-old Cante Long Soldier is a third-grader. She says the new pair of Nikes she received was probably the nicest pair of shoes she's ever owned.

Treasury spells out rules on taxing of tribes

• SUZANNE GAMBOA,Associated Press
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Taxes cannot be levied on honoraria to a shaman or spiritual leader for religious services, but could be assessed on per-capita payments from gambling revenues to tribal members, under a proposal for taxing Native Americans by the Internal Revenue Service.
• The thorny issue of taxing Native Americans and Alaska Natives had the potential to cause a rift in the good relations the Obama administration built with tribes during the president's first term. Tribal members chafed at IRS audits on their finances and at demands for tax payments on some benefits for and payments to them.
• At a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing in June, tribes complained that the IRS was enforcing tax laws without taking into account unique aspects of their sovereign governments. In one case detailed in written testimony, an IRS agent ruled tribal members who benefited from government programs should be taxed on the part of the benefit paid for by gambling revenue.
• Amid the complaints, the IRS and Treasury Department met with tribal representatives to hammer out some proposed "guidance" on what is taxable and what is ex

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