CARSON CITY :

Senate passes hotel room tax hike

Published Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | 1:33 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, March 10, 2009 | 2:27 p.m.

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story	Senate passes hotel room tax hike
obj	Do you support a 3 percentage point increase in the hotel room tax?
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State Senate delays vote on room taxes (3-9-2009)
Nevada Assembly OKs bill to raise room tax (2-24-2009)

CARSON CITY -- The state Senate passed a significant tax increase for the first time since 2003, approving a 3 percentage point hotel room tax increase in Clark County and a smaller increase in Washoe.

Voters approved a non-binding advisory ballot question on the room tax increase last year by a wide margin. The money will support the general fund during the first two years but will be dedicated to education and teacher salaries after that.

Nearly 99 percent of the new revenue, predicted to be about $230 million during the next two years, will come from Clark County.

Dan Burns, press secretary for Gov. Jim Gibbons, said the governor will let the room tax increase become law without his signature in five days. Burns said the governor did not support the petition initially and he is against raising taxes.

Gibbons, however, included the more than $290 million in revenue from the room tax in his budget for the next two years.

The bill is the result of a ballot initiative. If the Legislature had refused to pass the measure, voters would have had a chance to approve it in 2010.

The teachers union and three gaming companies, Station Casinos, Wynn and Harrah's, negotiated the deal after teachers originally threatened to go the voters with a gaming tax increase.

Five Republicans voted against the measure, objecting to the use of the initiative process to create tax policy and warning of job loss in the event that tourists spend less money in casinos because of the tax.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said he disliked the process but supported the bill reluctantly so that in the future the Legislature could change the measure.

This is the first of what is expected to be a painful process of budget cuts and tax increases to close a $2.3 billion budget shortfall the state faces.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this story.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy.

By Gregory

March 10, 2009

2:32 p.m.

Suggest removal

Northern Nevada, banks and businesses and mining contribute nothing new. Clark County contributes an estimated 230 million more for northern Nevada, which is an economic cess pool, with the major exception of Lake Tahoe.
By goingbust

March 10, 2009

2:38 p.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By VegasSucks

March 10, 2009

3:53 p.m.

Suggest removal

Of course the casinos would support this tax increase; anything to draw the attention away from increasing the casino tax. And at this stage of the game, with tourism and gambling numbers at their lowest, it is really just a moot point. Three percent times the low number of tourists visiting our fair city isn't going to bring in an extra $230 million dollars. No one knows how many tourists are going to visit. It's going to be interesting to watch R&R advertising finally have to work for their millions. And a full-page ad BEGGING people to return to Las Vegas isn't the answer. How embarrassing!
By route66

March 19, 2009

4:06 a.m.

Suggest removal

Ya got that right.
We'll never visit Vegas again.
Too many other places to go to spend our money.