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What are the rules on claiming Native American ethnicity on tax forms?

December 29th, 2009 6 comments

Recently I discovered that some of my ancestors were full-blood Native Americans who walked the Trail of Tears from Mississippi to Oklahoma. I have records with roll numbers for all of the my relatives born from these ancestors, and naturally I’m interested in acquiring birth/death/marriage certificates to prove my blood relation and tribal origins.

Does anybody know how the government law dictates who is legally entitled to claim Native American ethnity on Fedral/State tax forms and other official documents? In the past never registered as Native American, because I thought a person had to be pure 100% blood to claim it. Does the government require a certain quantum of Native American blood origin, or do they simply require some kind of roll/census number that properly proves I’ve already established my my Native American racial origin that is certified by my tribe?

More importantly, if you have any advice on how to go about establishing proof for my family’s genealogy, I would appreciate it. So far all I have is what my parents have given me where are a photocopies of letters written by ancestors, drawings of family trees, newspaper articles with photos, and roll numbers. Nobody seems to have any knowledge of who our ancestors were five generations back.

you are only native if you are enrolled in a federally recognized nation. and even if you are you will pay taxes like all the rest of us.

i’m enrolled mohawk and pay all the same taxes as my non native neighbors. the myth that we don’t pay taxes is a lie just like the lie that we get checks from the government. spread to make idiots hate us.

ETA: i file taxes every year. there is no race on those forms. when it comes to "green" no other color matters to the government. have you ever filed?