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Friday, Dec. 7, 2012 | 5:35 p.m.
It is now up to the Nevada Supreme Court to decide if the petition to levy a business tax for education can proceed to the 2013 Legislature.
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday the initiative petition had all the required 18,088 valid signatures of registered voters in each of the four congressional districts.
Scott Gillis, deputy secretary for election, said the counties completed their sampling of the verified signatures on the petition. There were 27,754 valid signatures in Congressional District 1 that includes Clark County and 26,663 in District 3 that also includes Clark County.
There were 29,291 in District 4 that includes Nye County and parts of Clark and Lyon counties. In District 2 there were 23,500 valid signatures in the rest of Nevada.
The Nevada State Education Association, the union of schoolteachers, gathered 152,703 signatures on the petition to impose a 2 percent margins tax on businesses with an income of more than $1 million.
The Supreme Court heard arguments this week whether the petition was legally defective and is expected to have a ruling soon.
The tax could raise $800,000 a year to go to the public schools.
If the Legislature doesn't approve the tax plan in 40 days, it will be placed on the 2014 election ballot.
There is something unsavory about permitting voters to determine how I, and you, must spend our money. Of course, in this grubby & greedy society overrun with parasites, many have no problem voting to confiscate personal property (that includes money) from others. It's easy since it costs them nothing to get a "free lunch." But there is no thing as a "free lunch." To get something, one must give up something and, in this case, it's part of our freedom. Sooner or later, chipping away at them will come back to bite those grubby & greedy folks, too.
I was hailed down like a taxi in front of Albertsons by one of these petition gatherers one Saturday as I prepared for my upcoming work week. A tire repair at Big O, battery at Walmart, filled my gas tank & car wash at Funny's, groceries at Sam's and a final stop at Albertsons for a few specialty items. The petitioner told me the 2% business tax won't affect me, only businesses that gross over 1 million, it's for public education!
"The tax could raise $800,000 a year..". Seems like a lot of work/expense for the Union for such a small tax that the Gov. already has said he would veto. LVSun are you sure of this $800K?
Hey Jerry,
I love guys like you and the hypocrisy you spew. You have no problem wrapping yourself in the flag and calling yourself a democracy loving "patriot" when it suits you, but boy oh boy that whole loving the democratic process thing goes right out the window when the democratic process takes a dump on your agenda, doesn't it?
God forbid voters do something as "unsavory" as determine how taxes are collected.
Lemme ask you this, Jer, if the voters shouldn't be the ones to set the tax policy for the community/state/country, who should? Fascism is no fun, Jerry.
@Labe. The tax would raise between $800,000,000 and a Billion, which is specifically designed for education.
Lets do the math. If a business has a million in revenue, the tax would be $20,000. If that is a problem for the business, then I would submit, it has bigger problems than the tax, and is not likely to survive.
Let's assume the business is thriving and see the real impact. In order to pay the tax, the business would need $55 per day. For some businesses, that may work out to less than a penny per transaction. Let's assume that the business in question has 100 sales per day. The cost would be an extra FIFTY-FIVE CENTS per sale. Let's assume that the business in question is doing well, and has 1000 sales per day. In that case, the cost would drop to FIVE AND A HALF CENTS per sale.
I am not sure that those amounts are going to have any impact on either customers or business.
Jerry,
Has that not always been the way though? Have not most taxes of just about every type been created by actions of the public?
Voters vote on sales tax increases, property tax increases all the time and have since day one. Why would this be different?
Jerry: I totally agree with you!! Why should I pay state and federal gasoline taxes to, at least partially, pay to pave the roads you drive daily. After all, I don't use them!
The road right outside your house or business? You should be billed separately for the expenses of building and maintaining it - as well as a fee to recover the costs of billing you for the expenses.
You forget one thing -your poison is my sine qua non, and yet we have to live together in something vaguely representing peace and quiet.
$800k annually?...You could save that much just by laying off a few over paid and mostly worthless administrators from many school districts in this state.
Why don't we do that? We don't even need a "study", everyone knows most school districts are bloated at the administrative level.
You could probably lay off dozens of them and no one would even notice.
Somebody needs to check the math...2% of $1 mil. is $20k...are you saying only 40 businesses would be paying this tax??
@stopthebs. No, the tax would be on every business in Nevada that has more than 1 Million in revenue. The tax is projected to raise between $800,000,000 to a Billion. See my post of 9:02 AM.
@ Jerry. Does the public vote for members of the legislature? I thought I did at the last election. The members of the legislature are supposed to reflect the will of the people, and by voting on taxes, they are reflecting the will of the people. So if the legislature votes on taxes it's ok, but if the initiative is voted on by all the citizens of the Nevada it's bad? Does that make sense?
Is this tax on revenues OR net income?...because just about every business needs to generate $1 mil. in revenue just to return a modest amount of net income.
In other words there are a lot of businesses that might generate $1 mil. in revenue but only earn the owners a small amount to the bottom line, sometimes nothing. In that case this tax very well could put those companies out of business.
@Stopthebs. How many businesses fall into that category. I will tell you the businesses that don't fall into that category. How about every national corporation that operates in Nevada. You know. Wal-mart, Costco, Target, Sears, JC Penny, Ross, TJ Maxx, ToysRUs, Petsco, Home Depot, Lowes, Petsmart, McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King, Carls, Jack in the Box, IHOP, Red Lobster, Carabbas, Olive Garden, Denny's, Smiths, Vons, Albertson, Food for Less, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, etc.
California mandates a very high percent of its budget on education (about 40%)and allots about $7000-$8000 per student, yet is still a state with one of the highest percent of students who fail to graduate grade 9. It also ranks near the bottom in high school graduation rates.
So, what this tells me is that while CA and the teachers unions want to throw money at the problem it's not expenditures that are the problem. As well, the State Controller in CA still has a 11% budget shortfall in spite of the fact CA voters were just suckered into raising taxes for education and services.
I am cynical in that I just don't see how money is the real answer to Nevada's educational problem. I think the issue is more systemic than can be solved by more taxes. I believe we live in a state that doesn't really want or need an educated populous.
Our primary industries, gaming and mining, for the most part don't need grade 12 grads to do the jobs required. Until this issue is addressed and we bring more industries into the State that require higher levels of education, the problem in my view will remain.
The arrogance of teachers' unions. They're dangerous.
@FreedomRadio.
Would that be the teacher's union that refused to sign off on a Federal Grant application which was unilaterally prepared by CCSD? The application that would affect 63 schools and only hired 24 teachers and 22 aides? The application that granted approximately 39 MILLION to a company in Colorado to provide programs and services without competative bidding? The application that didn't allow teacher input into how the grant funds would be used at a specific school?
Would that be the teachers union that forced CCSD to agree to have councils, which would include teachers, at each impacted school to decide how best to use the funds to help students? Would that be the teachers union that forced the removal of the designed company from Colorado and would put the program and services out to competative bidding? Would that be the teachers union that forced CCSD to create a district wide council to try to prevent this type of problem from occuring again? Would that be the teachers union which would have gotten an addition $18,000 in dues assuming that all new teachers hired by this grant would have joined the union. Yes, $18,000 really lines their coffers since the teachers union already collects over $4,000,000 in dues from members.
Is that the greedy teachers union that doesn't care about student achievement that you're talking about?
Even more dangerous are people who comment based on very limited knowledge and intelligence!