BUFFALO - Despite Gov. Cuomo??s recent crackdown, the leader of the Seneca Nation of Indians said that retailers on its territory would not allow tax collections of tobacco products, Buffalo Business First reports.

Seneca Nation President Robert Odawi Porter reaffirmed his Nation??s stance while Cuomo announced that the New York State Police, State Department of Taxation and Finance, and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have conducted more than 350 inspections of Indian-run outlets and seized tobacco products whose value exceeded $1.2 million.

New York??s collection efforts are the latest in an extended dispute between New York and Indian retailers that are working their way through federal courts in Buffalo and Manhattan.

"The law is the law and we will enforce it," Cuomo said last week.

Not so, responded Porter.

"As always, our status as a sovereign nation prevents, by federal treaty, enforcement of state taxes on our territorial commerce," Porter said. "We will never take any action to collect state taxes or allow the state to do so on our territory. That is not something that's open for discussion."