Tax commission says closed hearings are nothing new

Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 | 9:53 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- For 25 years the Nevada Tax Commission says it has met in closed session to hear the appeals of businesses that feel they have been overtaxed.

Not once during those years has the attorney general's office objected to the closed hearings, officials said. And in recent cases, the deputies in the attorney general's office sat in on the private meetings and never objected, the commission said.

The Tax Commission filed its answer to the suit by Attorney General Brian Sandoval that it violated the open meeting when it deliberated and voted to give a $40 million tax refund on sales and use tax paid by Southern California Edison.

Sandoval asks the District Court in Carson City to void the refund, find the commission guilty of violating the open meeting law and require it to deliberate and vote on the case in public.

The tax was imposed on coal mined in Arizona and shipped to Edison's Mojave power plant near Laughlin. It's not known why the commission gave the refund because its deliberation was done in private.

"Permitting deliberations in closed sessions has been the consistent practice of all the deputy attorneys general who have advised the Tax Commission under Attorneys General Dick Bryan, Brian McKay, Frankie Sue Del Papa and Sandoval," Thomas "Spike" Wilson, a private attorney in Reno hired by the Tax Commission, said in the answering document.

Wilson said in the Edison case, the commission discussed, deliberated and voted in closed session in the presence of Senior Deputy Attorney General Dena James, who "did not intervene or advise the commission at any time either to open the meeting for discussion or to open the meeting for the vote."

The answer by Wilson said the commission denies the intent of the open meeting law that deliberations must be in public. He said taxpayer confidentiality is an exemption to the open meeting law.

Taxpayers can request closed meetings to discuss their cases. The issue is whether the commission must then open the meeting when it deliberates and reaches a decision.

The law says it is unlawful for a member of the Tax Commission to disclose the taxpayer's business affairs, operation or information. It is a misdemeanor to reveal information or amount or source of income, profits, losses, expenditures "or any particular of them," according to the law.

The attorney general's office says the commission can discuss the case publicly without revealing these items.

Wilson is asking District Judge Griffin to hold an "expedited" hearing on the case.

His answer came a day before the Legislative Counsel Bureau issued a legal opinion that the Tax Commission could deliberate and vote in private on cases of taxpayers who request confidentiality.

No hearing date has been set in the case.