Chamber finally takes a stand — well, sort of

CARSON CITY

Every week, the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce sends a newsletter to subscribers, and it always starts the same way.

“The Metro Chamber is on the ground full-time in Carson City, serving as your voice,” it reads. “Our daily presence at the legislature gives Chamber advocacy professionals the opportunity to engage with lawmakers and work through some of the challenges of legislation, help craft compromises and ultimately pass meaningful and sound public policies.”

But for 113 days, on the most important issue of the session — the tax plan — the Chamber’s voice has been utterly silent. When Chamber “advocacy professionals” testified on taxes, they testified neutral.

But on Monday, things changed. Chamber Vice Chairman of Government Affairs Hugh Anderson and President Kristen McMillan showed up to endorse the Nevada Revenue Plan, the latest iteration of the governor’s tax bill.

Well, sort of.

Anderson hinted at what was to come by saying any Chamber support was conditioned on expanding the state’s sales tax base. McMillan said the Chamber was opposed to the commerce tax included in the Nevada Revenue Plan because it’s based on gross revenue, but “we can live with a less than optimal tax so long as it leads to an identifiable path to better tax policy.”

That’s when she broke out her “conditions.”

First, the Chamber wants an expansion of the sales tax base to services in the next session. (Of course, businesses only collect sales tax, they don’t pay it. And depending on what services we’re talking about, you could be paying the tax on car washes, haircuts and dry cleaning, if the Chamber gets its way.)

Second, the Chamber wants a commitment to studying all business taxes in the state. (The Senate Revenue and Economic Development Committee has already done an extensive review of the state’s taxes during the session.)

Third, the Chamber wants approval of funding for the UNLV medical school. (That’s already been done, thanks to a fee included in the bill to regulate ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft.)

Fourth, the Chamber wants more funds for graduate medical education. (The Nevada System of Higher Education wants more money for this, but didn’t get it.)

What, no $2 million in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills, a bus ride to the airport and a jet to Belize, or the bill gets it? How did no one say we don’t negotiate with (rhetorical) terrorists?

The situation was made all the worse by the fact that, according to a well-placed source, the Chamber had agreed to support the tax bill without conditions. The Chamber denied any such agreement existed in a one-word reply to an emailed question. But the surprised reaction during the hearing from Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, suggests some sort of understanding had been violated.)

So we waited nearly the entire session for this? For the reluctant, almost petulant agreement of a business organization that opposes a tax most of its members would not even pay? (The commerce tax doesn’t kick in until a business receives $3.5 million in revenue, so one must wonder for whom the “voice of business” really speaks.)

If the Chamber opposes the tax plan because of the revenue tax component — which it clearly does — then McMillan should have testified against it, the way the Retail Association of Nevada, the Nevada Trucking Association and the Nevada Resident Agents Association did!

This isn’t the first time the Chamber has earned mockery (most of the other witnesses Monday noted they were testifying “without conditions”) or ire (the Chamber was forced to fire the Tax Foundation as a consultant in March after the group criticized the governor’s tax, prompting him to criticize the Chamber for intellectual dishonesty and erroneous assumptions).

But Monday’s Chamber performance certainly didn’t help the organization engage with lawmakers, help craft compromises or arrive at sound policy. In fact, more than one person suggested it might have been better had the voice of business stayed silent.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist. He’s in Carson City to cover the final days of the 2015 Nevada Legislature. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) for up-to-the-minute updates. Reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.