A new New York tax law has persuaded the main tobacco supplier to the Seneca Nation to stop working with the tribe, the Buffalo News reported March 16.

A tax law that took effect March 1 allows state tax collectors to force wholesalers to pay taxes on cigarettes sold to entities that don't or won't collect state taxes -- namely, Native American tribes. The tax threat led Milhem Attea & Bros. to stop supplying upstate New York's Seneca Nation, which has pulled in millions from tax-free cigarette sales in recent years. Other suppliers have taken similar steps.

Attea has threatened a lawsuit over the tax law, and the Pataki administration is trying to delay implementation. But supporters of New York's tobacco tax say the wholesalers' decision could be a fatal blow to tribal sales of tax-free cigarettes. 

Barry Snyder Sr., the Seneca tribe's president, said the new state law leaves the tribe with "no choice but to develop a protected source of tobacco products to ensure that the nation and its people are not denied the ability to consume and trade these products in our territory."