Nevadans to pay more than $7 billion in taxes

Stephen Curran

Thursday, April 15, 2004 | 8:59 a.m.

Nevada taxpayers -- on the heels of a second round of federal tax cuts -- are expected to pay more than $7 billion in federal income taxes, according to a spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service.

Of the more than 1 million Nevadans who filed income tax returns, the tax cuts passed as part of the first wave of deep tax cuts in 2001 and subsequent cuts in 2003 will put roughly $100 in the pockets of middle-income taxpayers -- those who make between $14,000 and $56,800 per year, said IRS spokesman Bill Brunson on Wednesday, the day before taxes were due.

Those figures mark a shift in the 15 percent tax bracket, which previously included those earning between $12,000 and $46,700 per year, he said.

"Because of the widening of the brackets, (people are) paying less in taxes," Brunson said.

In a separate study, the U.S. Treasury Department estimates about 845,000 Nevada taxpayers in 2003 would have benefited from the two series of tax cuts.

But the numbers are not always that easy to interpret, Brunson said, as "multiple variables" can affect the exact dollar amount a taxpayer can expect to receive.

This year, the IRS estimates that average Americans will receive a $2,090 refund, compared to last year's average of $1,988.

"There are multiple variables involved," Brunson said. "Tax credits and dependents make for differing stories. Everything is based on circumstances."

All told, the IRS expects to refund more than $73 million to Nevada taxpayers this year, he said, compared with about $71 million in 2001.

Brunson could not estimate how many taxpayers would end up owing the federal government.

Meanwhile politicians on both sides of the aisle are using the tax cuts as an election-year battle cry to rally their party faithful.

On one hand, state Republicans credit the Bush tax cuts for a surge in the nation's economy; on the other, Democrats -- echoing the national platform -- say the cuts have cost the state's taxpayers thousands in lost services and ballooning deficits.

Adam Mayberry, spokesman for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Las Vegas, stuck to the Republican mantra, arguing that "every little bit helps" an economic recovery.

"Certainly every little bit helps and the tax cuts have gone a long way in giving people back their hard-earned money," Mayberry said. "That's what has contributed to the economic recovery we're seeing today. The American people, Nevadans, know how to spend their money better than the government."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Las Vegas, in a brief appearance at the Clark County Library on Flamingo Road, took the opportunity to bash the cuts, which she said will increase prices for higher education, gasoline and social services.

The cuts equal about $11,000 in higher tuition, gas prices and prescription drugs, a figure that Berkley called the Bush "Misery Index," while addressing a crowd of mostly senior citizens and members of the Sheet Metal Workers Union.

Berkley, who voted for the first round of tax cuts in 2001, argued for a freeze in current upper-income tax cuts and for a plan that she said would shift money to deeper middle-class cuts.

But she defended her earlier vote in favor of the cuts.

"There was no war in Iraq," Berkley said. "There simply weren't the Homeland Security issues."

Berkley along with other representatives from the Nevada State Democratic Party -- in an election-year publicity blitz -- will mail a series of petitions, designed to resemble utility bills addressed to President Bush, said Richard Urey, Berkley's chief of staff.

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 effectively eliminated the marriage tax penalty and increased child tax credit, according to the Treasury Department.