California Properly Taxed Gaming Income Tribe Paid to Member

California was right to tax a member’s share of tribal gaming income because he and his wife couldn’t prove they resided on reservation land, the California Office of Tax Appeals ruled in a pair of precedential opinions released Monday.

The California Franchise Tax Board refused to allow Rico and Michelle Garcia to deduct more than $600,000 in payments he received from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians from their 2010-2012 state tax returns. A three-judge panel upheld that decision, finding that the couple didn’t rebut the agency’s evidence that the husband’s closest connections were to homes outside the reservation, ...