Winnemucca News

Winnemucca News

Ballot initiative on mining tax heads to Supreme Court - 04-01-2010

CARSON CITY — In what is shaping up to be a David and Goliath battle between a small non-profit and the mining industry on the issue of taxes -- representatives of both will go before the Nevada Supreme Court on June 7 to argue the merits of their case.

The Nevada Mining Association (NMA) is appealing a lower court’s decision that allowed the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) to move forward with a ballot initiative that would, if successful, change how mining companies are taxed.

Under the Nevada Constitution mining is taxed at “no more than five-percent on net proceeds”; if the voters approve the change PLAN is forwarding mining would be taxed at “no less than five-percent on gross revenue” on all extracted minerals. 

Representatives of NMA claim such a change represents a 300 percent tax increase for the industry.  That figure comes from fiscal analysis at the legislative level that concluded if the tax change has been in place in 2008 the industry would have paid taxes to the tune of $284.4 million – instead of the $91.8 million it actually paid.

Earlier this year the NMA sought judicial intervention in order to have the ballot initiative declared invalid.  In 1^st Judicial District Court representatives of the NMA argued the initiative violated state statute that requires ballot initiatives to cover one subject only in order to avoid voter confusion.  NMA alleged the initiative, as presented, contains at least two subjects:  changing the Nevada Constitution and changing the tax rate.

They further argued PLAN’s description of the effect of the change was misleading.

The NMA lost on the first but won on the second.

The judge ultimately ruled the issues raised in PLAN's initiative were germane and interconnected to each other, which gave PLAN the ability to move forward.

But PLAN also suffered a setback as the judge further ruled the description of the effect was legally insufficient, misleading, and must be changed.

Because PLAN must now change the language in the initiative, the effect of the ruling was to wipe out all the signatures they’ve collected so far.  PLAN must collect 97,000 signatures by June 15 in order to get the issue on the 2010 ballot.

Written by Dee Holzel - Silver Pinyon Journal - 4/1/10

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