Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Hardy failed to pay over $5 million in taxes, loans for his private businesses

2015: Memorial Day Ceremony in Boulder City

Steve Marcus

Congressman Cresent Hardy, R-Nev., attends a Memorial Day Ceremony at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery on Monday, May 24, 2015, in Boulder City.

U.S. Rep. Cresent Hardy, a freshman Republican from Mesquite, is intimately familiar with the green tufts framed by the craggy desert at his hometown’s Falcon Ridge Golf Course. After all, in 2005, he designed the par-71, 18-hole course. An oasis of water and grass planted in a hardscrabble basin, it reflects Hardy’s ambition, the region’s turbulent real estate market — and the lawmaker’s failure to pay his corporate taxes and business loans in full and on time.

After a Nevada district court in 2012 ruled that Hardy and business partners were unable to repay loans made by American Bank of the North to finance the course, they were forced to sell Falcon Ridge to a Utah-based LLC for $2.8 million to pay off their debt.

That was not the congressman’s only financial hardship. He and his partners have faced unpaid business debt, including tax liens and private bank loans, totaling more than $5.3 million, according to a search of public records by the Sun.

That figure does not include debts stemming from a previously reported $8 million bankruptcy that Hardy’s construction company filed in 2012.

Although he attacked Niger Innis, his Republican primary opponent in 2014, over a similar record of unpaid business taxes, Hardy has never before accounted for the full scope of his own financial difficulties.

Today, the congressman casts himself as a victim of the economic downturn, but defends his record as a businessman. “Any small-business owner knows that the decisions are difficult, the days are long, and when business is down you just do the best you can,” Hardy said in a statement to the Sun.

“The small-business community knows what it’s like to take the risk and create jobs for others; it doesn't always work out, but that willingness to try is part of what makes this country — and Nevada specifically — so great. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone could be more successful — but since we don't have that luxury, we have to take our good experiences and our bad experiences to help shape who we are.”

The Falcon Ridge golf course is one of at least five of Hardy’s companies with large tax liens or other fiscal troubles — a record that begins before the recession.

From 2004 to 2012, the IRS filed $212,603 in liens on Precision Aggregate Products, a company in which Hardy had a 33 percent interest until 2013. That company also faced $69,212 in tax liens in 2003 filed by the state of Nevada.

In addition, in 2002 and 2003, Nevada filed a $196,786 lien against Noble Equipment, in which Hardy had a 25 percent interest.

Another of Hardy’s businesses, Legacy Construction and Development, faced troubles paying back private debts, settling a $2.1 million bill with Wells Fargo Equipment Finance just 16 days after the congressman took office. Though Hardy sold his stake in the company to a partner in 2013, his name remained on the civil case between the bank and Legacy.

In addition to the fiscal troubles, Hardy’s records paint him as a prominent developer in Mesquite, a town with 16,000 people that once sold itself as a retirement community for Baby Boomers.

His companies have built an elementary school, a hospital, a bridge and at least one road. In the aggregate, Hardy’s companies were the town’s seventh-largest taxpayer in 2011 and the eleventh last year. Deeds in the County Recorder’s Office show Hardy’s companies have been involved in more than $18 million in property transactions over the past 15 years. Two thoroughfares in the town — Falcon Ridge Parkway and Hardy Way — even intersect one another.

Many locals defend Hardy’s economic impact. Richard Secrist, development services director of Mesquite, said Hardy was involved in “much of the early development in Mesquite” and had a “tremendous impact on the community.” Secrist said Hardy’s business troubles were caused by the recession.

It wasn’t uncommon for excavators to lie idle for weeks in skeletal construction projects across the city, said Leroy “Buck” Schaeffel, a real estate agent and former board member of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. He moved to Mesquite in 2005, just before the financial collapse. He said that Hardy was not alone in his troubles. “It’s not unique to the congressman,” Schaeffel said. “There are a lot of people that got themselves into financial difficulty.”

In his first six months in Congress, Hardy has made the region’s small-business community a top priority, hosting local roundtables and workshops, serving as chairman of a subcommittee on small-business investigations and sponsoring or helping to write four bills on the subject.

It’s a group that he’s counting on to help buoy him to victory in his bid for a second term. He notched a long-shot victory in the fourth congressional district against one-term Democratic incumbent Steven Horsford, assisted by historically low turnout from Democrats and a last-minute expenditure of almost $1 million from Karl Rove-backed Super PAC Crossroads GPS. “Hardy’s victory was the biggest upset in the entire country,” David Damore, associate professor of political science at UNLV, said.

The congressman is likely to face a sharp challenge from one of four declared Democratic candidates. According to Damore, Hardy will have an incumbency advantage and a larger fundraising network than in 2014, but, “other than that, it’s going to be tough.”

Though until now Hardy has not publicly acknowledged the full scope of his tax troubles, he’s never been shy about proclaiming his distaste for the IRS. After his election to Congress, Hardy tweeted on April 15: “After you hit send on your taxes, tell the IRS what you really think.”

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