I ain’t pretendin’ to know all the highfalutin’ principles of taxation, depreciation, amortization, or bureaucratic incantation. But I know this–when a man tells you taxes are theft with one side of his mouth and says folks ought to pay to use the roads with the other, you’d best keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your common sense.
Such a man is Ed Lawson, the current mayor of Sparks–a town not known for sparking much but budget shortfalls these days. Mayor Lawson, who’s been piloting the good ship Rail City since 2020, is now bemoanin’ what he calls “the most regressive property tax system in America.”
That’s a bold claim coming from a fellow who thinks taxes are a crime, but toll booths are a civic duty. I’m guessin’ should you slap a price tag on freedom and call it a “user fee,” it don’t feel so larcenous.
According to His Honor, Sparks is about $12 million short of making ends meet, and over in Reno, they’re projecting a $24 million hole in their britches. So what’s the plan? Fire a mess of staffers, skip some fire and police calls, and keep tellin’ folks their quality of life is taking a temporary vacation—destination unknown.
“We don’t get to print money,” Lawson says. No–but you get to vote on how much to take from the folks who earned it.
Now, let me explain the situation as best I can without falling asleep– Nevada’s got this peculiar way of taxing property. The tax rate don’t reset when the house changes hands, and instead of appreciating with the value, it depreciates 1.5 percent each year for 50 years–like a horse that gets slower every mile but keeps fetching a higher price.
So a fancy $2.5 million mansion might get taxed less than a modest new home if it’s older than sin and twice as dusty. Naturally, some legislators want to fix this.
Assemblymember Natha Anderson, for one, is championing a constitutional amendment–Assembly Joint Resolution 1—which would hit the reset button on property tax rates at the time of sale. You sell your house–the buyer pays full freight.
You stay put–you keep your sweet little tax break. The plan is to pump millions back into public coffers, hire more police, and maybe even patch up a pothole.
But wouldn’t you know it, the plan’s got more opposition than a cat in a dog parade. The Nevada Realtors don’t like it. Conservative groups don’t like it. And they all seem to agree on one thing–government should cut their fat before it comes after skinny wallets.
Here’s the kicker–while Lawson scolds the property tax system for being regressive, he’s fond of something called “tolls,” which is a tax you pay to use a road you already bought once with your gas tax, and again with your registration, and maybe thrice with your soul. In the old days, we called that highway robbery.
Nowadays, we call it “infrastructure funding.” So there you have it.
A mayor who says taxation is theft–unless you’re stealing from travelers one car at a time. A legislature wantin’ to fix a broken system by breaking it differently. And a citizenry that ain’t sure they’re bein’ protected or pickpocketed.
As for me, I prefer the old system–if a man builds himself a house, he oughtn’t be taxed half to death for the privilege of keeping it. And if the government can’t afford to mind the roads, maybe they should walk a few miles in our boots.
The Old Blog in the Desert 