There’s more to the margins tax

Henry Schmid, Las Vegas

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

The state Supreme Court’s decision last week about the margins-tax initiative recognizes that the limited wording of an initiative does not allow a complete statement of all aspects of the proposed tax. It did not address the regressive nature of this tax. All business taxes are passed along to the consumer as a cost of doing business. But unlike sales tax, this will increase the costs of all goods and services, prescription medications and even the cost of visits to the hospital, which may be running at a loss.

A less regressive way to raise money for schools would be to raise the sales tax, but this would be harder to sell to the voters than having them think that business would just pay these taxes. The tax initiative, pushed by the Nevada State Education Association, assumes that voters will sign up for anything that relates to schools.

The Legislature should vote no on this tax and allow the voters to decide in an election. I am sure it will be defeated once all the facts are known.