When reservation basketball teams play surrounding white bordertown communities, cheerleaders from bordertown communities chant, "We pay taxes yes we do! We pay taxes how about you?!" A lot of white Americans think that Native Americans don't pay taxes. They think we get things for free. Well, the fact is that Navajo Indians pay their taxes just like other American citizens. We have to pay income tax to the federal government. Federal income taxes are due April 15 every year. Recently, two popular tax outlets in Gallup, New Mexico that serve the Navajos with tax preparation services were sued for cheating their Navajo customers. An attorney, Nicholas Mattison, sued Ellis Tanner and T & R Tax Services for deceptive practices against 15,000 Navajo customers. Those deceptive practices include charging a higher amount than what was stated in the contracts. The two companies reached settlements to pay back the money to their customers totaling in the millions of dollars. This is wrong at many levels.
Ellis Tanner prides himself as "Ayehe yazhi", or 'the small inlaw'. I thought as an inlaw, your responsibility was to help your spouse's family, not lie to them, cheat them, and steal from them by the millions. I would says that Tanner and T & R have been doing this for decades. It is just now that they got caught. I would say that that is the normal practice by traders and businesses in the surrounding bordertowns. Like the payday loan companies and the car dealerships and the Indian jewelry stores, they prey on the illiteracy and lack of education of Navajos. After all, Gallup is the "World's largest Indian trading center".
Many of our people still speak limited or no English. Many of our people don't understand business sales tactics or contracts clauses. We don't realize that these companies are sharks, they have come to prey on us, they smell blood, and we walk right into their bait. This includes the alcohol industry that is ran by state politicians. It is only recently that we Navajos have started becoming educated and started doing something about our situation by starting counter efforts like the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, by suing payday loans, Wells Fargo, etc. Shame on these non-Navajo people for preying on our women and stealing our money, property, and resources. It is not good when you are the victim of manifest destiny, all the land grab and exploitation of natural resources. No wonder a lot of our people fall into hopelessness and become homeless, alcoholics, and some commit suicide. I am glad for those council delegates who have voted down the mining of fossil fues in Black Mesa. This is just a short victory, we still have all the Ellis Tanners, the T & R Markets, alcohol retailers (like Sagebrush) in the checkerboarded parcels that keep the surrounding reservation intoxicated, and all the greed for fracking in our Dinetah. They are hungry. I don't think the King Gold Mine spill and contamination of heavy metals into the San Juan River was an accident. The list goes on and we have to keep vigilant and fight on for our Dine people.
