The details are in all the papers, so let’s just summarize a few points about the Legislature’s BILLION DOLLAR TAX HIKE proposal which has finally been revealed to those of us who are about to get screwed by it.
Yes, a BILLION DOLLAR tax hike. In the middle of a recession. Legislators have already approved a $232 million room tax hike, and the new schemes are expected to add at least another $780 million to the total. These people are, as Steve Wynn says, “psychotic.”
The “jobs tax” which businesses have to pay for every employee they hire is going to be DOUBLED or maybe even TRIPLED. How many jobs to you think that will create? How many jobs do you think that will kill?
In a cynical divide-and-conquer strategy, Democrat Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is proposing to reduce the jobs tax on businesses with payrolls of $250,000 or less by, at most…..89 cents per day. This will reduce the amount of money coming in from all of those businesses by an estimated $16 million.
But by jacking up the rate on larger businesses, the state government will be enjoying a windfall on the backs of Nevada’s most successful job creators of some $349 million. Hardly an incentive to grow and expand your small business, is it?
In addition, the business license tax (why anyone needs a permission slip from the government to open a lemonade stand in the first place remains a mystery to me) is being DOUBLED – in addition to whacking businesses with multiple locations with multiple business license taxes. How many new businesses which will be able to hire new workers will this tax hike help create?
The sales tax which all of us pay – resident and tourist alike – is going up, up, up….again, again, again. That’ll sure stimulate sales in a down economy, won’t it?
And as if vehicle registration fees aren’t high enough already, legislators plan to boost the motor vehicle tax on cars older than nine years old, a clear attack on low-to-moderate income folks who can’t afford a new Lexus. Which led Assemblyman Ed Goedhart (R-Amargosa) to volunteer this Quote of the Week: “I live in the rurals where a lot of time we have ten cars that don’t move and a house that does.”
But here’s the worst part of all this: The Republican Party’s leaders – Senate MINORITY Leader Bill Raggio and Assembly MINORITY Leader Heidi Gansert – are actively scheming right alongside the Democrats to pass this billion dollar tax hike. No wonder they’re the MINORITY leaders.
