Today, Nevada workers got an official indicator of how hard they’ve been hit by our economic downturn. Nevada’s hidden income tax, named the “Modified Business Tax”, came up short of projections by $13-million over the three months ending September 30.

This tax is .62 of one percent of wages paid. When you divide the $13-million shortfall by the tax rate, it turns into a half billion dollars of projected wages that Nevada workers were not paid.

Employees in financial service business are taxed at a rate three times higher, and some of the wages that were not paid might be in those industries. So the actual amount of projected wages not paid Nevada workers is less than $500-million, but almost certainly well north of $250-million. That’s a lot of suffering for Nevada’s workers.

None of the shortfall impacts government employees, of course. Not only do most government employee get a “step” raise of 5%, they all get a cost-of-living increase. Even more startling, the Nevada Employment Security Department reports that in the month of October, government employment increased by over 5,000 employees (net of retirements).

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