Kelly J. Bullis: Repeal Commerce Tax — version 2 of Gross Margins Tax

Remember that movie in which the character opens his window and screams, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it any longer!”

Well, the more folks I talk to, when they find out the details of this new Commerce Tax, they usually come pretty close to that frame of mind.

One of the main issues here is about integrity. The governor ran on the anti-gross-margin-tax platform last year when he had to have been writing up his proposed Gross Margin Tax version 2 ... now known as the “Commerce Tax.” (Change the name, and come up with a clever new way to define “gross margin,” then temporarily lower the tax rate to make it less intrusive initially, and voila!) Of course, the governor had to employ dirty politics to get certain legislators to change their vote from “no” to “yes” at the last minute. Literally, the vote was taken on the last day of the session and it was snuck through on a weekend when most weren’t paying attention.

So, what can we, the 80 percent of Nevada voters who defeated the Gross Margin Tax, do about it?

Believe it or not, there’s a simple process that allows us to force this onto the next election where we can vote it back out of Nevada law.

Right now, there’s a mechanism that has been put in place to start the petition signing activity. It’s called “RIP Commerce Tax.” In Northern Nevada, the Political Action Committee formed to raise the necessary funds for this is called “NV80 PAC.” In Southern Nevada, they have a different Political Action Committee that has been formed to raise funds. All funds will be used to hire the necessary folks to get out and start getting signatures on the petition to recall the Commerce Tax. There’s a certain number of days allowed from filing to when the signed petition must be presented in order to get the issue on the next election ballot.

What’s holding it up? Money of course. There’s a minimum funding goal necessary before the process can be started. By the way, the governor’s buddies (ties to gaming?) have formed their own PAC to raise funds to defeat this petition process. You might start to see their commercials praising the supposed virtues of this Commerce Tax.

So, here’s what you can do. Go to http://www.nv80pac.com, and get involved.

Let’s send the governor and the Legislature a message we the people are still the boss and they work for us. When they deliberately go against our recent stated wishes, we need to exercise our right to reverse their wrong actions.

Get the word out to all your friends to help fund this and get the petitions out there for signatures. Once they are out, make sure to sign it and get all your fellow Nevada voters to sign it as well.

Kelly Bullis is a Certified Public Accountant in Carson City. Contact him at 775-882-4459. He’s on Facebook and the web at BullisAndCo.com.