Lawmaker plans petition to freeze property taxes

Wednesday, May 5, 2004 | 11:25 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Two-term Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, is reviving a property tax plan that was buried in the 2003 Legislature.

Angle said she would file an initiative petition today to amend the Nevada Constitution to limit property taxes to 1 percent of taxable value.

She said the proposal is comparable to Proposition 13 passed by California voters in 1978 restricting property taxes. A similar proposal in Nevada, Question 6, was defeated in 1980.

Under the plan, a person's home could not be revalued until it is sold. Angle suggested it would be a "wash" in the first year for the taxpayer and for the revenue received from the property tax by local governments, schools and the state.

But she said the taxpayer would benefit in subsequent years because the valuation of the home or land would be frozen. But revenues to government would suffer.

Angle said the homeowner would not have to worry about the residence being reappraised every five years and the tax bill rising.

Assemblyman Lynn Hettrick, who opposed the $863 million tax package that passed in the 2003 Legislature, and tax analyst Jeremy Aguero, who worked with the governor's Tax Task Force that recommended changes to the state's tax structure in 2002, said Angle's plan, taken by itself, could hurt government services.

Hettrick, R-Minden, said there are "plenty of complaints" about the rising property taxes and there is good reason to look at the plan, but he said counties and school districts would be hit and the Legislature would have to find another source of revenue to keep them functioning.

AJR 19, which proposed to freeze property taxes, was introduced in the 2003 Assembly by 12 Republicans. Hettrick did not sign on to the resolution. It never got out of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments.

Aguero, principal analyst for Applied Analysis, said such a proposal would have to be accompanied by other changes in the tax structure to make up the losses to government.

"The property tax is the most stable source of revenue we have in the state," Aguero said. "It would dramatically reduce the ability of the state, local governments and special districts such as the school district to remain financially stable in the long run.

"It's a tough situation," he said. "Everybody wants the public services that are out there. But no one likes taxes."

Angle acknowledges she has a giant task before her. She must gather 51,234 signatures of registered voters on the petition by June 15. And she must get 10 percent of the voters to sign in at least 13 of the 17 counties.

She said she has volunteers ready to work.

But prior petitions this year to repeal the $833 million tax increase have failed so far to gain the necessary signatures.

Angle said a survey was conducted two weeks ago showing that 70 percent of the voters in Southern Nevada support such a proposal. "I feel the time is right," she said."