The state Taxation and Revenue Department has agreed to delay collection of the spaceport tax in Doña Ana County after the Attorney General’s Office said doing so was appropriate.
The AG opinion, which you can read by clicking here, concludes that the tax “may not be imposed, collected or enforced absent the formation of a regional spaceport district to which the proceeds of the tax can be allocated.”
The Taxation and Revenue Department has agreed, because of that, to delay collection, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting.
“I believe our plan is to defer collection, as the attorney general said we could do,” Carolyn Wolf, chief counsel for the Taxation and Revenue Department, told the newspaper.
Voters in Doña Ana County narrowly approved earlier this year the 1/4 percent increase in the gross receipts tax to help fund Spaceport America, but later voted to delay collection, which had been scheduled to start on Jan. 1, until at least July because voters in Sierra and Otero counties haven’t yet decided whether to implement the tax. State law doesn’t allow the money to be spent unless at least two governments form a regional district, and commissioners said they didn’t want to collect tax money that may never be spent for the purpose for which it was approved.
The decision to delay the tax halts the possibility of legal action. A delay was backed by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, but the Taxation and Revenue Department said previously that the county’s vote to delay the tax wasn’t valid because it could only be delayed by amending or repealing the ordinance that allowed the April tax election. There wasn’t time to do that before the tax was to take effect, and commissioners had discussed the possibility of suing to delay collection.
The AG opinion, authored by Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Glenn, was sought by state Rep. Joni Gutierrez, D-Mesilla.
Glenn wrote that the county’s interpretation of the tax-district law – that it could adopt the tax before a regional district was created – came from an ambiguity in state law but was not the intent of the Legislature. Glenn wrote that the Legislature intended for at least two local governments to form a tax district before any adopted a tax increase.
“Because the county enacted the tax prematurely under the law, we conclude that the Taxation and Revenue Department may properly defer enforcement of the tax until a district is created,” Glenn wrote.
Wolf told the Sun-News that a letter will be sent to businesses in