Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Group drops effort to repeal commerce tax on ballot

Controller

AP Photo/Lisa J. Tolda

Nevada’s Assistant State Controller Geoffrey Lawrence, left, State Controller Ron Knecht and Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, present an alternative tax plan to Gov. Brian Sandoval’s plan during a budget hearing Thursday, May 14, 2015, inside the Nevada Legislative Building in Carson City.

Updated Thursday, May 26, 2016 | 8:23 a.m.

A conservative group fighting for a repeal of a tax passed by the Nevada Legislature last session announced today that it is suspending its efforts.

The move comes just two weeks after the Nevada Supreme Court threw out more than 20,000 signatures to get the repeal on the ballot after determining that some of the summary language included on the group’s petition was inadequate. The RIP Commerce Tax group determined that after the signatures were thrown out there was no way to gather the signatures needed before the June 21 deadline, said Controller Ron Knecht, who spearheaded the efforts, in an interview Wednesday night.

“With the signatures thrown out, we scrambled and did everything we possibly could to find a way to make it happen from ground zero,” Knecht said. “After the signatures were thrown out, there was just no way.”

The petition aimed to repeal the so-called commerce tax — which only applies to businesses that generate more than $4 million in revenue in Nevada each year — one portion of a $1.4 billion omnibus tax plan passed by the 2015 Legislature. The taxes allowed the Legislature to fund an expanded 2015-17 budget including extra allocations to K-12 education in Nevada.

Campaign filings due Tuesday showed that the RIP Commerce Tax group had raised only about $37,000 this year to support its efforts. However, Knecht said that money was not the constraining issue. Rather, he said that there wasn’t enough time to gather 73,000 signatures — the number he estimated the group would’ve needed to ensure that at least 55,000 of them were valid to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

Americans for Prosperity had been helping the group with its signature gathering efforts, but Knecht said that AFP estimated it would only be able to help with about 36,000 signatures, which would leave the other half up to volunteers, which just wasn’t feasible.

“It was time to admit that there just wasn’t the way,” Knecht said.

Knecht hopes that the issue will come up in the 2017 legislative session. But in the meantime, he said that he is encouraging people to vote out of office those legislators who backed the commerce tax.

“I’m encouraging people to vote their conscience and their intelligence and get rid of the people who didn’t understand and were treacherous and vote for some who will do better,” Knecht said.

In a statement issued Thursday morning, the Governor's Office highlighted how the commerce tax had allowed the state to make an "unprecedented investment" in K-12 education.

"Now that the referendum has failed, the governor believes it's time to move on and continue the work to ensure today's students can meet the demands of the new Nevada economy," spokeswoman Mari St. Martin said.

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