A mixed-blood Ute sued the federal government Monday, demanding a tax refund because the 39-year-old Ute Termination Act made her oil, gas and mineral royalties exempt.
Laura June Murdock of Fort Duchesne and the estate of Colin Murdock are seeking $10,252 back from the IRS and a court declaration that such taxation is illegal.
Neither Ms. Murdock, who has lost appeals with the IRS, nor her attorney, Kent Higgins of Idaho Falls, were available for comment Monday.
The plaintiffs insist they are exempt from taxes on $34,500 income from royalties, stock and other assets they acquired after Congress stopped recognizing the Ute tribe in 1955.
The Termination Act called for an end to recognition of the tribe "and eliminated many, but not all aspects of the special relationship between the tribe and the federal government," according to the 11-page suit.
Congress went one step further with the Utes, they contended: distinguishing between mixed- and full-blooded members -- then refusing to recognize the mixed bloods.
"The decision to terminate the mixed bloods from the tribe was due, at least in part, to racial antagonism between the full bloods and the mixed bloods," the suit asserts.
The Murdocks say that when the act divvied up oil, gas and mineral rights, property, cash and other assets, it was too complicated to split equitably between mixed and full bloods. Thus, those assets acquired by mixed bloods were supposed to remain tax-exempt, they maintained.
The Murdocks also contended they were never notified that the government would no longer recognize them. They only learned about it when a list of names was published in The Salt Lake Tribune on Feb. 2, 1955.
The government later abandoned its non-recognition policy of American Indian tribes.
Copyright Salt Lake Tribune Oct 5, 1993