Legislators discuss uncollected taxes

CARSON CITY -- Legislators, looking for ways to erase a revenue shortfall, met Thursday to discuss ways of tracking down businesses or people who could owe the state as much as $150 million in uncollected taxes.

"We know that there are a lot of uncollected taxes out there, a lot of things that slip through everyone's fingers," said Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, who led the joint Senate-Assembly tax panel meeting.

State Controller Kim Wallin said that as a part of Assembly Bill 87, she plans to add a "wall of shame" to the state Web site to post names of those who owe money to the state.

The bill would require state agencies to turn over lists of debts owed to them to the controller's office within 60 days.

Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, presented the idea of a "business portal," an online site that would streamline fee collection by allowing businesses to file taxes, pay fees to incorporate and pay for unemployment insurance.

Nicole Lamboley, a chief deputy secretary of state, estimated that building the portal would cost $15 million over five years.

State Taxation Director Dino Dicianno warned against hoping for a windfall from uncollected taxes: "a lot of this debt is considerably old. Some of it goes back 26 years."