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Comment by treeman79 | Hacker News Reader

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treeman79

No income tax? Never mind injuns coming. Where do people sign up to become one?

Huge percentage of population has some Indian blood.

The exact definition can be worth a lot to many people.

Let the drama begin!

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Please don't post flamebait to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You "sign up" with the sovereign tribal governments, just like any other nation. EU citizenship is worth a lot to many people, but they've still managed to find a system that doesn't include anyone with "some European blood".

Every tribe can determine their own criteria, and while some do consider how much "Indian blood" you have, that seems to be mostly because the US government heavily promoted the idea 100 years ago: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/10/20/18426433/warren-ance...

Native americans do pay the same federal income tax as everyone else. Tribes don't pay federal tax. If you live on a reservation, you generally don't pay state income tax. It is kinda complicated.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way, and no, most US citizens don't have any appreciable native ancestry, no matter what family mythology says.

There was already an incentive - tribes running casinos had folks try to force their way in to get a cut. It didn't work; tribes get to manage their membership, and have historically been quite picky about how they do it.

https://www.voanews.com/usa/native-american-tribal-disenroll...

You can't sign up. I know someone who is part (unknown tribe) , but her grandpa didn't Regiser with the tribe and she can't so she is fully American to the law. Some distant cousins of hers with less generic heritage are members of the tribe. There are advantages to being part of a tribe, but many have decided they are Americans and not bothered joining for reasons of their own.

I believe that you must have an ancestor whose name appears in the Dawes Rolls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Rolls

"Indians" in the sense you're using are not an actual thing. To my understanding, if you want to be a member of the Muscogee Nation, then you need to show legal proof of a bloodline going back to at least one specific person on the Dawes Roll's list of Creek members.

If you believe you are a member of a tribe, contact them. Each tribe has procedures for determining membership as well as the rules, such as distance, in order to obtain benefit.

None of that is new.

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