Tribe to extend senior tax exemptions

Under its new Trust Improvement Use and Occupancy Tax Code, the Swinomish Senate has decided to adopt a policy granting tax exemptions to low-income seniors and disabled people.

Most of the homes in Shelter Bay and in the Pull & Be Damned Road neighborhood were removed from the county property tax rolls on Jan. 1, as a result of a federal court ruling that determined homes build on leased tribal trust land are immune from property taxes.

However, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, the sovereign government of the Swinomish Reservation, will impose its own taxes on those 931 parcels that are now...