Tesla finds loophole to New Mexico’s dumb ban by launching on tribal land

Electrek ^ | 10 Sept 2021 | Fred Lambert

[DUMBGRUNT]

Tesla has found a loophole to get around New Mexico’s ban on direct car sales by launching their first store and service center on tribal land.

This week, the automaker managed to open its first store and service center inside an old casino north of Santa Fe, and they did it by partnering with the first nation of Nambé Pueblo and opening the location on their tribal land:

[DUMBGRUNT]

—”since these autos aren’t being sold in the U.S., then their owners shouldn’t be eligible for any state or federal kickbacks ...”

IIRC Tesla and GM burned through the 200.000 allotments...
But wait there is more!!!
With joe the jamoke it is in the GREEN ACT, yet to be passed(?) good for another 200k but only $7,000 (not $7,500).

[Who is John Galt?]

Any taxes paid on transactions in the "Sovereign Nation"?
Musk, you clever devil!

There are definitely tax advantages available, for businesses willing to do business on sovereign tribal lands. And the DOI has been promoting that kind of development, and those types of agreements, for many years - using a search engine other than google, look for "Office of Indian Economic Development" or "Division of Energy and Mineral Development" (there may be other groups as well).

It's definitely to Mr. Musk's credit, that he's looked 'outside the box' for a solution, and apparently found one in cooperation with a sovereign tribe. (Hopefully he also included a clause in his contract with the tribe, specifying that any disputes will be settled in federal - rather than tribal - courts; otherwise, he risks 'getting his clock cleaned'! ;^)

[lepton]

But government handouts kept them poor.

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It’s that, but not just that. There are indian cartels in place which control most of the wealth that there is.

[lepton]

But government handouts kept them poor.

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It’s that, but not just that. There are indian cartels in place where a relatively few families control most of the wealth that there is.

[lepton]

The fact that states require car manufactures to sell through dealers makes no sense and stinks of corruption.

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If they didn’t, there’d be an order of magnitude less competition.

[fini]

"If The Indians would only realize what they have they would be rich. Not just casino money either."

I agree with you. They could give 99 year leases on land and have people lined up to get away to avoid a pile of laws and regulations.

[hanamizu]

Many years ago my dad got transferred to Phoenix, Arizona. He was in the car finance business. I remember being shocked (I was young with a skull full of mush back then) when he said he would not finance a car sale to an Indian. Back then, once the car was on the reservation it was virtually impossible to collect the debt or fetch the car. Tribal law, tribal courts.