Raggio says time for another meeting

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, says it's time to admit a gross-receipts tax isn't going to pass the Legislature and begin talking about what will.

He said Wednesday he's trying to bring legislative leaders together this week to see if they can "agree on the components of a tax plan."

"It's fairly obvious now that anything with gross receipts or net profit (taxes) is not going to get a two-thirds vote," he said. "We have to move ahead."

Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, has said for some time his caucus won't support a gross-receipts tax, which he argued would "punish people for making money."

And when he presented fellow Republicans with last weekend's proposal for a net-profits tax on business similar to on proposed by the teachers' union two years ago, he said, there was even more resistance.

The Senate found a two-thirds majority to pass a tax plan generating nearly $870 million over the next two years, but it was based on, among other things, a payroll tax charging businesses for each employee.

Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, said if a gross-receipts tax were substituted for the payroll tax, a two-thirds majority wouldn't support it in the Senate. He called on Assembly Democrats to give up on the idea, because it can't get enough votes in either house.

Raggio said lawmakers need to take the process step by step.

"Hettrick agreed with me the first step is we have to agree on what kinds of tax can be supported by two-thirds," he said. "We cannot go further until there's a workable tax plan. Then you can talk about how much."

There was some favorable response from Hettrick after he and Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, met Tuesday. Perkins proposed a services tax designed to reach professionals including lawyers and accountants who now make significant amounts of money but aren't directly hit by any existing tax levy.

Hettrick said that could win some support among the GOP holdouts.

But Perkins said after the meeting he still believes the plan must include a broad-based business tax and that he doesn't believe a payroll tax meets that definition, because it misses high-profit businesses with few employees.