Just weeks after the Mashantucket Pequots tribal nation instituted a 1 percent tribal tax, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wants to ensure the customers at Foxwoods Casino, as well as the state of Connecticut, are not being deceived.
Blumenthal said this is likely deceiving casino patrons into believing that they are, in fact, paying a state tax. When the tribe retains all of the supposed 7 percent tax and remits none of it to the state, the effect is to misinform and mislead consumers, he said.
The state tax is 6 percent but the tribe is charging 7 percent, and sometimes it is being applied when no state sales tax is charged, Blumenthal said.
He wants the tribe to clearly identify its 1 percent tribal tax separately and distinctly from the state tax on all consumer receipts. If not, he said, action will be taken, although he was not specific as to what that might be.
Bill Satti, a spokesman for the tribe, released a statement Wednesday evening saying, "We have always collected and remitted all taxes as required by our agreements, including those that, as a sovereign nation, we are not otherwise required to collect and remit on behalf of the State of Connecticut".
