Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 | 3:36 a.m.
These folks make Ebeneezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist. Their announcement last week of a tax non-plan, which differs little from their presentation to that tax policy panel earlier this year, shows a defiance and arrogance that would make Ken Lay proud. They clearly have not even bothered to look at the exhaustive study the tax committee completed, and their Band-Aid fixes to raise an estimated $384 million barely reaches half of a projected deficit and goes nowhere near addressing the long-term, multibillion-dollar shortfall.
Giant share? These groups are run by giants who refuse to share, sticking instead to a mantra of "We've got ours, we want more and if you don't like it, tough luck."
McMullen and Co. were unintentionally accurate during that May 2001 news conference in Carson City when they released a statement that proudly proclaimed: "This is a declaration no less serious or sincere than others the business community of Nevada has made in the past." Too true. It is impossible for them to be less serious and sincere.
The Las Vegas Chamber of Horrors has taken every position on the map since the last session, including coming out against the panel's gross receipts tax before any of its members could have had a chance to read the committee report. The Nevada Manufacturers Association showed that what it is most adept at producing are prevarications when its executive director, Ray Bacon, said their plan "is a short- and long-term solution to the fiscal shortfall." And the Nevada Retailers Association showed that what its members know best how to sell is snake oil, with this plan to double an existing head tax, increase some corporate filing fees and maybe, just maybe, someday pass a sales tax on services they won't define.
I wonder if any of these people have even read the section of the report that quantifies the looming deficit at $700 million, a figure the document says "is based upon current service levels only."
So with this plan, the so-called Business Representatives Group not only is refusing to pay the -- here's that phrase again -- giant share of the immediate needs but its members also apparently feel that the kind of state they want to live in is one that's profitable for them and hurts those less well off.
How magnanimous. How charitable. How sickening.
And this after they committed in May 2001 -- quoting their statement again -- "to meaningful reform of our Nevada tax structure as a means to ensure that future funding and revenue issues are minimized and our tax system in Nevada is as stable and effective as possible in funding our needs without crisis."
We knew they were dissembling then; now they have proved it. This plan does nothing to broaden the tax base -- taxing employee numbers and a sales tax on services let big business such as banks, retailers and developers off the hook. And what's worse is that this plan hurts small business much more than a gross receipts tax, which started with a $350,000 threshold and will be hiked up to at least $500,000 by the time the Legislature convenes.
The same cannot be said of a sales tax on services, which will directly affect small companies, and customers will see it every time they need one of those services (services these business people can't even define 18 months after their phony promises, except to identify a passel of services that would be, of course, exempt).
Their haughtiness is boundless, too. At the end of the group's laughably named "Plan for Fiscal Stability" is a set of conditions lawmakers must meet to win support for more taxes, including the usual stuff about cutting waste, educational accountability and an agreement not to consider a gross receipts or net profits tax. Translation: It's our way or the highway.
The real question, though, is: Will they get away with it?
In the past, gaming has behaved not as an omnipotent oligarchy but as an impotent bunch cowed by the business folks threatening a gaming tax initiative. But say what you will about the casinos -- they have agreed to pay the gross receipts on top of their gross gaming tax. And that raises another point: If the business folks think taxing gross receipts is so unfair, why haven't they lobbied for the way casinos are taxed to be changed?
Nevada Resort Association Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta insisted last week the gamers are united and will not blink this time fighting the big business attempt to escape the tax knife. But the gamers will need help.
In the end, this will come down to who is running the state and what do they want Nevada to look like. Frankly, I'd rather have the gamers in charge because they at least contribute something. Big Business gives a pittance and has profited from the gaming-driven economy.
But what's coming is nothing short of a test of whether Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Gang of 63 will cede their authority to these tax dodgers or whether they will tell the voters the consequences if business is allowed to escape paying its -- what was their phrase? -- giant share.
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