Friday, May 21, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.
Nevada's state and local governments collected $4.13 billion in taxes in fiscal 2003, according to U.S. Census figures released Thursday.
On a per-capita basis, Nevada ranked 25th in the nation in the amount of state taxes paid, a statistic experts called misleading.
A sizeable portion of Nevada's taxes are paid by tourists, whether by out-of-state gamblers whose gambling losses add hundreds of millions in gaming taxes to state coffers and by visitors who pay sales taxes on hotel bills and on purchases at Strip shopping malls.
Those extra tax dollars inflate the per-capita average, a number that's just below the national average of $1,883 a year.
Still, the survey ended in July and therefore does not include the effect of the $833 million tax increase approved last year by the Legislature.
Experts cautioned that the figures released Thursday aren't an accurate reflection of the tax burden faced by the average state resident.
"A big chunk of our tax revenue is from gaming and tourism, which means visitors are paying those dollars, not our residents," said Mark Pringle, chairman of the economics department at the University of Nevada, Reno.
At any one time, about 18 percent of the people in the state are visitors and paying some form of taxes, pointed out Jeremy Aguero, a principal analyst for Applied Analysis.
The census report looked at taxes or portions of taxes that go to state and local governments, such as sales, property, gas and alcohol taxes. The report not include any federal taxes.
In all, Nevada ranks below the national average in the amount of taxes paid on alcoholic beverages, public utilities, and tobacco sales.
The state ranks slightly above average in fuels taxes, property taxes, insurance premiums, and sales and gross receipts taxes.
Some, such as Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, think that it's those sort of taxes that add up for Nevadans.
"For a reputation of being a low-tax state, you would think we would be in the bottom 50 percent," Angle said of the study released Thursday.
She is pushing a constitutional amendment that would cap property tax increases, an idea that was criticized this week by the Nevada Taxpayers Association.
But Angle argues that the rising property taxes, which mostly go to county and city governments, combined with higher state taxes are discouraging to residents who moved here assuming there was a lower tax rate than where they moved from.
Nevada does have a slightly higher per capita amount of taxes paid than many of its neighbors, including Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Colorado.
It is far behind its neighbor to the West, however. California ranks 10th-highest in the nation, with the average person paying $2,231 a year.
Nevada's taxes are so much easier on businesses that companies continue to flock from California, said Christina Dugan, director of government affairs for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.
"Relative to the nation as a whole, we're doing pretty well, which is why so many businesses are moving from California," she said.
Nevada purposefully has a relatively high sales tax so that tourists end up shouldering much of the burden, said Chuck Chinnock, executive director for the state Department of Taxation.
"We allow them to contribute to the sales tax as much as possible," Chinnock said.
Recent Las Vegas Strip trends, including dramatic increases in the number of deluxe hotel suites and a big jump in high-end retail offerings, allows the state to capture even more sales tax revenue from out-of-staters.
Before the 2003 legislative session, the governor's tax task force estimated that half of all state general fund revenue came from tourists.
Eastern states tend to rank high on surveys of total taxes per capita because they typically provide more social services and programs, Pringle said.
And southern states are usually at the bottom of the ranking, because lower salaries there make it less expensive to operate the government, Pringle said.
As for Nevada, the state channels significant portions of its tax revenue toward building and maintaining roads and on police and fire protection, Pringle said.
"We have a tax structure designed to keep Nevada safe and secure for our tourists," Pringle said. "At the same time we're conservative in terms of state-funded social programs for the people who actually live here."
The ranking released Thursday is down from a 2002 census survey, when Nevada residents paid the 22nd-highest state taxes in the country, with an average of $1,842 per person.
Sun reporters Emily Richmond and Cy Ryan contributed to this report.
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