Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/427

 502us2$21K 08-19-96 17:39:52 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 251 (1992)

269

Opinion of the Court

invoke the Burke Act proviso. When we are faced with these two possible constructions, our choice between them must be dictated by a principle deeply rooted in this Court’s Indian jurisprudence: “[S]tatutes are to be construed liberally in favor of the Indians, with ambiguous provisions interpreted to their benefit.” Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S., at 766. See also McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S., at 174. To render this a “taxation of land” in the narrow sense, it does not suffice that, under Washington law, the excise tax creates “a specific lien upon each piece of real property sold from the time of sale until the tax shall have been paid. . . .” Wash. Rev. Code § 82.45.070 (1989). A lien upon real estate to satisfy a tax does not convert the tax into a tax upon real estate—otherwise all sorts of state taxation of reservationIndian activities could be validated (even the cigarette sales tax disallowed in Moe) by merely making the unpaid tax assessable against the taxpayer’s fee-patented real estate. Thus, we cannot even accept the county’s narrower contention that the excise tax lien is enforceable against reservation fee property conveyed by an Indian seller to a non-Indian buyer. The excise tax remains a tax upon the Indian’s activity of selling the land, and thus is void, whatever means may be devised for its collection. Cf., e. g., Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, supra, at 154–159 (Indian proprietors may be compelled to precollect taxes whose incidence legally falls on nonIndians); Moe, 425 U. S., at 482 (same). The short of the matter is that the General Allotment Act explicitly authorizes only “taxation of. . . land,” not “taxation with respect to land,” “taxation of transactions involving land,” or “taxation based on the value of land.” Because it is eminently reasonable to interpret that language as not including a tax upon the sale of real estate, our cases require us to apply that interpretation for the benefit of the Tribe.