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AP Photo/Cathleen Allison
Nevada Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, left, and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, arrive at a meeting with state business and community leaders Thursday, May 5, 2011, at Western Nevada College in Carson City. Democratic lawmakers continue to work on a tax plan despite Gov. Brian Sandoval’s stance against any tax or fee increases.
By Anjeanette Damon (contact) 
Thursday, May 5, 2011 | 8:05 p.m.
Sun coverage
CARSON CITY — The Legislature’s two Democratic leaders did their best Thursday to convince a conference hall full of skeptical business leaders that they have developed a sound plan to not only fix the budget deficit but stabilize Nevada’s tax structure.
After months of planning, quietly meeting with business leaders and stoking outrage toward Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget, Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, and Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, delivered their argument and their plan in a 90-page PowerPoint presentation.
That plan, they argued, would prevent debilitating cuts to education and social services, better capture the type of revenue being generated by Nevada’s economy, give businesses a certain future and rid the state of a payroll tax that hinders hiring.
In political terms, however, Democrats have a put forward options, each of which will garner varying levels of opposition and support.
And as they struggle to bring the session to a close with a $1.5 billion alternative to Sandoval’s budget, they’ll have to convince myriad power players with a matching set of special interests to join them in flipping at least five Republican lawmakers who have shown no sign of softening their support for the governor’s budget.
The options include:
• The proverbial can to kick down the road.
Simply removing the expiration date on the tax increase passed in 2009 would generate $626 million — more than half the new revenue they want to add back to Sandoval’s budget. But it would do nothing to provide long-term reform of the tax structure.
This has emerged as the easiest option to usher through a deeply divided Legislature, with both Republicans and Democrats agreeing it’s hard to consider it a tax increase. It also received the most telling support in the town-hall meeting Thursday.
At the meeting, former Harrah’s Entertainment CEO Phil Satre asked analyst Jeremy Aguero whether he had any evidence that payroll or other taxes have exacerbated the state’s economy.
“No,” Aguero answered simply.
The argument, in short, is if everyone keeps paying what they’re paying now, it won’t hurt economic recovery, which is the centerpiece of Sandoval’s opposition to taxes.
• A middle-of-the-road tax increase that both conservatives and liberals have supported in the past.
Imposing a small 1 to 4 percent tax on services such as hair cuts, auto repairs and legal services would better capture revenue from an economy dominated by consumer spending on services rather than goods, Aguero said.
Democrats want to sweeten that pot by gradually lowering the sales tax on goods by 1 percent.
The tax has been supported by conservative activists as a potential revenue neutral way to broaden Nevada’s tax structure and was fought for by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce in 2003.
As one business lobbyist said: “That’ll probably get our support. But not the franchise tax.”
• The new broad-based business tax.
Democrats have never liked the broad-based business tax passed after an all-out battle in 2003. The modified business tax assessed on payroll, they argue, is a disincentive for businesses to hire people or increase salaries.
They want to replace it with a tax on business revenue in a plan strikingly similar to the gross receipts tax proposal that brought the 2003 Legislature to a standstill
The new tax, which they’ve dubbed the margin tax, is more flexible than the gross receipts tax. Businesses that provide services could deduct wages and salaries. Businesses that produce goods could deduct those costs. High-tech businesses could perhaps deduct capital.
But the ambitious proposal, which has generated the most unease among business leaders, was cast too late in the session to be properly vetted, many argue.
As Nevada Retailers Association CEO Mary Lau put it: “You can’t do it in a month, slam it down people’s throats, without having a war.”
Call your legislator today at 1-800-978-2878 and demand that the Sandogibbons budget, which continues to force Nevada's Working Families and Small Businesses to subsidize foreign mining corporations that have made billions since the recession began, be dumped. Its time that Nevada's Working Families and small businesses, who have been forced to pay the price for a recession they did not cause, get the breaks given to Canadian and European mining companies, who have been able to write off MORE THAN their paultry 5% net proceeds tax and have Nevada's Working Families pay for them to come into our state and take our gold and silver. The last two governors-both Republicans-prefer those foreign companies to the people of this state; Sandogibbons makes it plain in his budget that he feels the same way. Time to take the budget back for the people whose vote truly counts and not those who believe that both the people of this state AND their government serve only big business.
What's Tracy Morgan doing in a story involving Senator Horsford?
Did Democrats/Libs push hard for a person who promised to raise taxes during their nomination process for Gov? No
They nominated a person who promised not to raise taxes.
So why are they pushing for taxes, now?
If they nominated a pro-tax person and that person won the gov then they would have the will of the people behind them.
Instead, they nonimated an anti-tax person.
The Republicans anti-tax person won with a significant percentage and his core theme was NO NEW TAXES.
So the will of the people is behind the gov.
The Democrats plan will bring about a return of housing bubble era spending. We can't afford that. They want $600 million more than we're spending now and that is irresponsible.
http://www.thewesternwrangler.com/2011/0...
It's time - the Republicans have said no, no, no, no. . . I would rather see the government shut down than see schools take the huge hit they were scheduled to take.
Maybe that is what we all should let happen --- given the Republicans their personal dream, no police, no firemen, no teachers, no hospitals . . . shut it down in June. AND we should publish addresses and phone numbers of all those Republican holdouts who don't compromise at all . . . Buy a bunch of TV ads telling people not to have an emergency or send their kids to school because we are going to have a Republican type government in June - NO GOVERNMENT.
I'm so sick of these people thinking they hold all the cards. There are more of us than there are of you - and we are getting sick of being bullied. There is money in this state. All the billionaires better start paying their fair share - or get out of our state.
Want to save some money, start with firing everyone that spent taxpayer money on preparing the 45 page Powerpoint presentation to raise our taxes. Remember what this great State of Nevada stands for...tuffing it out! We're not like alot of the other wimpy states that the only tuffness they know is tax, tax & tax. I have recently created a new business here in NV and will be employing others, investing in infrastructure, advertising, paying expense to run an office, telecomunications etc. It may take a few years to turn a decent profit. I am taking the risk. I am investing my hard earned money. My business will support my employees and there families. I will pay their medical. It will contribute to charities. What more do you want out of me. Pass a gross receipts tax and tax on services and I will move the business and myself to another state and leave 1 more empty house behind. I'm sure I will not be the only business owner to exit, there will be an exodus. Where is the inovation, the new ideas. These are the same junk tax ideas that have been hashed over back and forth for years. They needed a new Powerpoint presentation for that. I'm okay with the $200 /yr biz license. I'm handling the very high property taxes in NV as compared to other states. I'm handling the high sales tax. Sure there needs to be more revenue. That revenue needs to come from more businesses coming into NV, not from business leaving. Need money for education, get it like all the other states...from a state lottery. The other states now all have gaming AND a lottery. NV could probably develop the hottest lottery in the country, we sure have the know how and it could be developed and implemented just as fast as they can re-carpet a casino. Mining...how can Nevadans tolerate this rippoff. That gold and silver are our (all Nevadans) natural reources. Tax it too the max. Look at Alaska, they realize that the oil is a natural resource owned by the people of Alaska. Every Alaska resident gets a check every year from tax revenues generated on that oil. Hey those people live in and take care of that frozen part of the world, they deserve it. We live in this barren desert and take care of it, we too deserve it.