PILT more like payment in lieu of payment
Nevada once again has been victimized by income inequality, held back by the 1 percent of the 1 percent.
Are Wall Street and overpaid CEOs behind the state's plight? Please. Those folks are positively egalitarian when measured against the country's most miserly baron: the federal government.
Last week, Nevada officials showed courtesy and gratefulness when Washington tossed the state a few more crumbs better known as PILT: Payment in Lieu of Taxes. It's a gift Western states rely on to compensate counties for vast tracts of federal land that not only generate no property tax revenue, but burden taxpayers with the cost of having absentee bureaucrats mismanage them.
Your property taxes are mandated by law. For Washington, which owns about 30 percent of the nation's total acreage, property taxes are optional.
Earlier this year, Congress had decided to allocate a little more than $23 million to Nevada for its roughly 56 million acres under federal control, some of which are rich in mineral and energy reserves. As part of the recent federal budget compromise, however, Nevada gets an additional $2 million, pushing total payments to counties north of $25 million. That's slightly less than what counties received last year, but slightly more than what they got in 2013.
But Washington's effective property tax rate in Nevada really hasn't changed. It pays about 40 cents per acre, per year.
Such an arrangement might be easier to stomach if the payments were uniform across the country. But some states collect more than others. Way more.
In fact, although Nevada has a higher percentage of federal land than any other state — more than 80 percent — it gets less for that land than any other state in the West. New Mexico, Washington and Colorado were the leaders in this year's PILT party at $1.40 or more per acre. Arizona, Utah and Montana received around $1.10 per acre. Wyoming, California and Idaho were in the next tier at about 90 cents per acre. Only Oregon, at about 54 cents per acre, was in Nevada's neighborhood. Or slum, as it were.
Someone notify the Occupy movement.
In total, the Interior Department handed out almost $440 million in PILT payments to the states, after collecting more than 30 times that amount in fees from energy development, grazing or other productive uses.
So much for spreading the wealth. And Nevada's congressional delegation consistently celebrates this nothing burger as largesse.
What's especially sad about this deal is Nevada counties' dependence on the dough. It helps them pay for public safety and infrastructure. They have such paltry tax bases, even the slightest dip in PILT funds hurts.
The lack of state-controlled and privately owned land greatly limits Nevada's economic growth. PILT will never provide adequate compensation for that. Free our land.
Next NewsFeed
NewsFeed, the breakfast discussion series presented by the Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, returns Wednesday, Nov. 18, with a conversation about Nevada's important role in the 2016 presidential election.
I'll moderate a discussion with a pair of longtime Nevada political consultants: Billy Vassilliadis, chief executive officer of R&R Partners, and Sig Rogich, president of Rogich Communications Group. We'll talk about Nevada's first-in-the-West presidential caucuses and whether they're compelling candidates to focus on issues important to the state; what Las Vegas might gain from hosting the final presidential debate in October; and how Nevada's status as a battleground state affects the primary and general election campaigns.
The event runs from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at the Four Season Las Vegas, inside Mandalay Bay on the Strip. Tickets cost $40 and can be purchased through www.lvchamber.com or by calling 702-641-5822. I hope to see you there.
— Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is the Las Vegas Review-Journal's senior editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays at 10 a.m. on "Live and Local — Now!" with Kevin Wall on KBET 790 AM.
