Crack down on those not paying taxes

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas

Saturday, May 17, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

Now that we have a governor who insists upon not raising taxes, it is imperative that we all pay our fair share. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that here in the wild, wild West, many Nevadans and others do not.

All those cars exiting your subdivision at 7 a.m. every weekday — the ones with Texas, Alaska and California license plates — did you think they were just visitors? Nevada law requires that vehicles in the state for 30 consecutive days be registered and licensed.

How about all your new neighbors? You know, the ones who seem to change every six or 12 months? Is that a new owner or another renter? What are the odds that under Nevada’s honor system of property tax reporting, the homeowners are paying the tax rate for rental property and not declaring the income on their federal taxes? Taxes that are not being paid by all these lawbreakers are being paid by honest taxpayers here in Nevada.

There is a simple solution to this problem. Many informational databases exist here. For example, the Department of Motor Vehicles has driver’s license and registration information, and Clark County has data on property taxes and school enrollments.

This and other information can be easily cross-correlated electronically, anomalies culled and the appropriate contacts made to see whether there is any reason to pursue the matter further. Now a lot of people will scream it’s George Orwell’s “1984” all over again and Big Brother is watching you! So what? If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.