On July 17th, 2008, The state Supreme Court of Nevada has refused to change their decision of giving a refund worth $100 million to Nevada casino facilities that paid a tax on giving free meals to VIP players and employees. The Supreme Court denied the petition from the Nevada Taxation Department to reconsider its decision in March that there was no taxable gathering when the casinos gave free meals.
In its decision, the court said that the arguments made for a rehearing by the taxation are the same and did ignore any part of the law. The director of the Taxation Department, Dino Dicianno said that he has not time to study the decision of the re-hearing. He said that the refund could reach up to $100 million. The refunds would be coming from state and local governments. Some of the casinos have offered to receive their refunds in phases.
Dicianno said that he would talk with the Nevada Taxation Commission to determine the procedure on how to give back the refund. The lawsuit was filed by the Sparks Nugget which lost in the court in Reno. But the Supreme Court changed the decision of District Judge Brent Adams. The Nugget estimated that they are entitled to a refund of $501,369 that they paid to the state and local governments and school districts from April 1st, 1999 to February 28th, 2002.
The court said that the Nugget is required to collect sales tax on the food that it sells to their customers but not on complimentary meals. The court also thrown the request of the Taxation Department to send the lawsuit back to Judge Adams for further study whether the Nugget has received any consideration for the free meals. The court also said that the Taxation Department already had the chance to construct a record on the issue but failed to accomplished it.
The Gibbons administration introduced a proposal in a special session of the Legislature to change the law to stop refunds. It was approved by the Assembly but failed to passed in the Senate.
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