Legislature has little time to tackle tax proposals

Erin Neff

Monday, March 3, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Nobody expected lawmakers to start Day 1 of the session on Gov. Kenny Guinn's $1 billion tax proposal, but with a quarter of the session completed, little has been done in the Legislature.

For the first month of the session, committees have worked hard on any number of things while lawmakers waited for the governor's first tax bill. But as lawmakers try to busy themselves with other matters, only one nonprocedural measure has made it out of the Legislature.

"Their minds are clearly elsewhere," said veteran lobbyist and financial guru Marvin Leavitt.

The session truly begins Tuesday with a joint session of the Senate and Assembly taxation committees taking up the governor's tax bill, which was only submitted last week.

The Legislature won't have much time to handle the seminal issue of the session.

Bills must pass their initial committee by April 11 and pass their first house by April 22 due to the time constraints of the 120-day session. The only exception is made for bills designated emergencies and exempt from the deadlines.

Guinn wants lawmakers to pass the bill he introduced on Wednesday by the end of this month so that tax increases contained within will be imposed April 1.

In theory, that leaves eight days worth of Assembly and Senate taxation committees to pore over the need for the emergency measure.

And once the governor submits his large tax proposal Tuesday -- the one that includes taxes on cigarettes, liquor, business, property, amusements, business gross receipts and gaming -- those committees could easily get swept up in the intricacies of that document, which is hundreds of pages long.

Guinn's proposal won't be the only one the tax committees consider.

The Nevada Task Force on Tax Policy will have a lengthy tax proposal, containing the same elements as Guinn's but at different rates and amounts.

Sens. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, will also have a tax bill with some of the Guinn plan's elements, but replaces the gross receipts business tax with increases in the room tax and a substantial gaming tax increase.

There are two other tax bills -- one involving a sales tax on services and another involving increases to the real estate transfer tax.

In addition to the five separate tax bills, research is being conducted on 16 other possibilities for different lawmakers.

It is all proving too taxing for the average lawmaker.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do," said Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno. "It's just so much to ask people to pay."

The first month of the session focused largely on the social issues arising from interim study committees, including studies of the death penalty and racial profiling.

But despite some work on the bills, if it isn't about taxes, it isn't really on the radar.

Assembly Government Affairs Committee member Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, said he's in no rush to process some of the more substantive bills his committee has heard at this stage of the session.

"It's too early, and we don't know how some of these things are going to play out," Manendo said.

Some committee chairmen are holding off work sessions or votes on bills to keep them "hostage" for later in the session to try to use those bills as leverage for bills they favor.

State agencies and lobbyists alike, who in the past could complain to the governor's office or legislative leaders about their bills being held hostage, are without a compassionate ear this session.

Guinn met Thursday with rural legislators, trying to tell them his plan won't adversely impact their constituents. Most want to believe him, but as one freshman Republican Assemblyman said: "The numbers just don't look good. And what are we supposed to do, just say let a Democrat have this seat next time?"

The governor is working to assure different interest groups that his proposal is not that bad.

During a reception at the Governor's Mansion for the Nevada League of Cities on Thursday, he said: "There's nothing in my plan that's bad for you."

That statement means he has no intention of shifting local county money to the state. He also tried to assure the locals that the proposed 15 cent property tax hike won't impact their budgets.

Guinn said his tax bill will increase the current $3.64 cap to $3.79, meaning local counties and cities who are near that cap won't have to lay employees off or cut services to impose the state's 15-cent property tax increase.

The governor also met Thursday with a group of bankers opposed to the gross receipts tax and warned the Nevada Taxpayers Association that future budgets will be bleak for the next 10 years.

Aside from the 2 percent "trigger" increase for school employees in his proposed budget -- a raise that was supposed to be awarded last year -- Guinn said that unless his tax proposal is passed there will be no raises for any state or school employees for the next decade.

"I don't see our situation getting much better," Guinn said. "I've given the Legislature a series of options for the immediate needs and a bridge to future biennia.

"They have to decide if they want to have to do this again in two years (when the Legislature next convenes)."