Days before the end of the state’s legislative session, a New Mexico House of Representatives panel on Monday approved a bill that would levy a gross receipts tax on nonprofit national lab operators in the state.
The House Taxation and Revenue Committee voted 10-5 to pass a bill that would if signed by Gov. Susana Martinez (R) allow Santa Fe and New Mexico localities to tax the gross receipts of a not-for-profit entity operating Department of Energy national laboratories in the state.
The measure is now on a greased skid to the House floor, which it must clear before Thursday when the legislative session ends. A gross receipts tax is essentially a tax on revenue that nonprofits in New Mexico do not have to pay.
Local interest groups worry that if a nonprofit wins the next 10-year contract to operate the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the state could lose out on $25 million to $30 million in taxes now paid annually by for-profit incumbent Los Alamos National Security (LANS).
The Department of Energy decided to remove LANS in 2014 after a series of nuclear safety lapses at the northern New Mexico nuclear-weapon lab. The incumbent partnership, including longtime Los Alamos manager the University of California, is on the job through Sept. 30. The university is bidding on the follow-on pact and managed Los Alamos as a nonprofit for decades until 2006, when LANS took over. A number of other universities, including the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, are either known or reported to be in the hunt for the contract.
