Nevada should tax businesses for real

By Fredrick Wilkening, Las Vegas

Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015 | 2:02 a.m.

I read with interest the Sun’s Jan. 11 article “What’s ahead on the Hill?”

There was Assembly Minority Leader Marilyn Kirkpatrick wanting to expand the live entertainment tax again. It’s a wonder Democrats stayed in power for as long as they did. Isn’t it time we expanded the modified business tax instead?

Politicians have said for some time that they are proud of the fact that Nevada does not have a business tax, but we do tax businesses — we just use the word modified to hide the fact.

Nevada should have a real business tax. Any resident of Nevada can get on a computer and look at a department store’s product; find that product in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Las Vegas; and find the costs are close because of regional pricing. But because of shipping, items in LA are priced higher to help cover the cost of getting them to Salt Lake City. The other states paid a business tax; stores here made a bigger profit.

Our elected leaders know we need new revenue, and little taxes aren’t going to help. Let’s stop subsidizing surrounding states and start fixing our schools and some of the other problems we have. Oh, that’s right, in Nevada our leaders would rather tweak a broken law than fix the problem.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” It’s time all businesses paid their fair share.