13

in 1953. H. R. Rep. No. 848, pp. 3-5; Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, 532 F. 2d 655, 662 (CA9 1975). And nothing in its legislative history remotely suggests that Congress meant the Act's extension of civil jurisdiction to the States should result in the undermining or destruction of such tribal governments as did exist and a conversion of the affected tribes into little more than "private, voluntary organizations,'" United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544, 557 (1975)-a possible result if tribal governments and reservation Indians were subordinated to the full panoply of civil regulatory powers, including taxation, of state and local governments." The Act itself refutes such an

13 The legislative history of Pub. L. 280 does contain a congressional expression that "the Indians of several States have reached a stage of acculturation and development that makes desirable extension of State civil jurisdiction to the Indian country." H. R. Rep. No. 848, p. 6. But not too much can be made of this unelaborated statement; its thrust is too difficult to reconcile with the focus of Pub. L. 280-extending state jurisdiction to those reservations with the least developed and most inadequate tribal legal institutions; presumably those tribes evincing the least "acculturation and development" in terms of the mainstream of American society. See Goldberg, Public Law 280: The Limits of State Jurisdiction over Reservation Indians, 22 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 535, 543 (1975).

14 Much has been written on the subject of a devastating impact on tribal governments that might result from an interpretation of § 4 as conferring upon state and local governments general civil regulatory control over reservation Indians. Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, 532 F. 2d 655, 662-663, 666-668 (CA9 1975); Goldberg, supra; Note, The Extension of County Jurisdiction Over Indian Reservations in California: Public Law 280 and the Ninth Circuit, 25 Hastings L. J. 1451 (1974); Comment, Indian Taxation: Underlying Policies and Present Problems, 59 Calif. L. Rev. 1261 (1971). The suggestion is that since tribal governments are disabled under many state laws from incorporating as local units of government, Goldberg, supra, at 581, general regulatory control might relegate tribal governments to a level below

373

Opinion of the Court

inference: there is notably absent any conferral of state jurisdiction over the tribes themselves, and § 4 (c), 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (c), providing for the "full force and effect" of any tribal ordinances or customs "heretofore or hereafter adopted by an Indian tribe . . . if not inconsistent with any applicable civil law of the State," contemplates the continuing vitality of tribal government.

Moreover, the same Congress that enacted Pub. L. 280 also enacted several termination Acts 15-legislation which is cogent proof that Congress knew well how to express its intent directly when that intent was to subject reservation Indians to the full sweep of state laws and state taxation. Cf. Board of Comm'rs v. Seber, 318 U. S. 705, 713 (1943); Goudy v. Meath, 203 U. S. 146, 149 (1906). These termination enactments provide expressly for subjecting distributed property "and any income derived therefrom by the individual, corporation, or other legal entity. . . to the same taxes, State and Federal, as in the case of non-Indians," 25 U. S. C.

that of counties and municipalities, thus essentially destroying them, particularly if they might raise revenue only after the tax base had been filtered through many governmental layers of taxation. Present federal policy appears to be returning to a focus upon strengthening tribal self-government, see, e. g., Indian Financing Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 77, 25 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, 88 Stat. 2203, 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V), and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has expressed the view that courts "are not obliged in ambiguous instances to strain to implement [an assimilationist] policy Congress has now rejected, particularly where to do so will interfere with the present congressional approach to what is, after all, an ongoing relationship." Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, supra, at 663.

15 68 Stat. 718, 25 U. S. C. § 564 (Klamath Tribe); 68 Stat. 768, 25 U. S. C. §§ 721-728 (Alabama and Coushatta Tribes of Texas); 68 Stat. 1099, 25 U. S. C. §§ 741-760 (Paiute Indians of Utah); 68 Stat. 250, 25 U. S. C. §§ 891-901 (Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin).

§§ 564j, 749, 898, and provide that "all statutes of the United States which affect Indians because of their status as Indians shall no longer be applicable to the members of the tribe, and the laws of the several States shall apply to the tribe and its members in the same manner as they apply to other citizens or persons within their jurisdiction." 25 U. S. C. §§ 564q, 757, 899; cf. 25 U. S. C. § 726. These contemporaneous termination Acts are in pari materia with Pub. L. 280. Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S., at 411. Reading this express language respecting state taxation and application of the full range of state laws to tribal members of these contemporaneous termination Acts, the negative inference is that Congress did not mean in § 4 (a) to subject reservation Indians to state taxation. Thus, rather than inferring a negative implication of a grant of general taxing power in § 4 (a) from the exclusion of certain taxation in § 4 (b), we conclude that construing Pub. L. 280 in pari materia with these Acts shows that if Congress in enacting Pub. L. 280 had intended to confer upon the States general civil regulatory powers, including taxation, over reservation Indians, it would have expressly said so.

IV

..

Additionally, we note that § 4 (b), excluding "taxation of any real or personal property belonging to any Indian or any Indian tribe... that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States," is not obviously the narrow exclusion of state taxation that the Minnesota Supreme Court read it to be. On its face the statute is not clear whether the exclusion is applicable only to taxes levied directly on the trust property specifically, or whether it also excludes taxation on activi

ties taking place in conjunction with such property and income deriving from its use. And even if read narrowly to apply only to taxation levied against trust property directly, § 4 (b) certainly does not expressly authorize all other state taxation of reservation Indians.

Moreover, the express prohibition of any "alienation, encumbrance, or taxation" of any trust property can be read as prohibiting state courts, acquiring jurisdiction over civil controversies involving reservation Indians pursuant to § 4, from applying state laws or enforcing judgments in ways that would effectively result in the "alienation, encumbrance, or taxation" of trust property. Indeed, any other reading of this provision of § 4 (b) is difficult to square with the identical prohibition contained in § 2 (b) of the Act, which applies the same restrictions upon States exercising criminal jurisdiction over reservation Indians. It would simply make no sense to infer from the identical language of § 2 (b) a general power in § 2 (a) to tax Indians in all other respects since § 2 (a) deals only with criminal jurisdiction.

Indeed, § 4 (b) in its entirety may be read as simply a reaffirmation of the existing reservation Indian-Federal Government relationship in all respects save the conferral of state-court jurisdiction to adjudicate private civil causes of action involving Indians. We agree with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that § 4 (b) "is entirely consistent with, and in effect is a reaffirmation of, the law as it stood prior to its enactment." Kirkwood v. Arenas, 243 F. 2d 863, 865-866 (1957). The absence of more precise language respecting state taxation of reservation Indians is entirely consistent with a general uncertainty in 1953 of the precise limits of state power to tax reservation Indians respecting other than their trust property, and a con

gressional intent merely to reaffirm the existing law whatever subsequent litigation might determine it to be.1 Finally, in construing this "admittedly ambiguous" statute, Board of Comm'rs v. Seber, 318 U. S., at 713, we must be guided by that "eminently sound and vital canon," Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Hollowbreast, 425 U. S. 649, 655 n. 7 (1976), that "statutes passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes . . . are to be liberally construed, doubtful expressions being resolved in favor of the Indians." Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918). See Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 675 (1912); Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194, 199-200 (1975). This principle of statutory construction has particular force in the face of claims that ambiguous statutes abolish by implication Indian tax immunities. McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm'n, 411 U. S., at 174; Squire v. Capoeman, 351 U. S. 1, 6–7 (1956); Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363, 366-367 (1930). "This is so because .. Indians stand in a special relation to the federal government from which the states are excluded unless the Congress has manifested a clear purpose to terminate [a tax] immunity and allow states to treat Indians as part of the general community." Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. United States, 319 U. S. 598, 613-614 (1943) (Murphy, J., dissenting). What we recently said of a claim that

16 Congress would have been fully justified in 1953 in being uncertain as to state power to levy a personal property tax on reservation Indians. No decision of this Court directly resolved the issue until Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), decided earlier this Term. It appears that the only decision of this Court prior to 1953 dealing with state power to levy a personal property tax on reservation Indians was United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432, 443-444 (1903), which held exempt from state taxation personal Indian property purchased with federal funds. See United States Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 865 (1958).