In 2020, two Las Vegas communications consultants brought a lawsuit against a group of top online booking companies. The complaint alleges that the defendant travel companies avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in hotel room taxes by buying the rooms as discounted prices, selling them to consumers at higher rates, and then, paying taxes only on the discounted price — not the actual sale price. On July 13, Clark County District Court Judge Mark Denton refused to reconsider his denial of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and earlier in the year, he denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss the qui tam plaintiffs’ claim under the Nevada False Claims Act (Nevada FCA). However, as of August 3, those companies appealed the lower court’s decision to the Nevada Supreme Court, arguing that a qui tam lawsuit cannot be maintained when the government subsequently files a lawsuit on the same conduct (but alleging different claims).[1]
This case emphasizes the power of using state False Claims Act statutes to enforce a state’s tax laws. While the federal False Claims Act bans tax enforcement cases, there is a growing trend among states to allow tax cases to be brought under their state False Claims Act statutes, notably New York, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. The Nevada FCA, unlike the federal False Claims Act and many other states, is silent on the question of whether qui tam plaintiffs may bring an action for tax fraud, but this silence has been interpreted by...
(JNS) The reported purchase by an Israeli entrepreneur of roughly 70% of the homes in the deserted village of Trozena, Cyprus, has triggered a wave of false rumors and accusations, even as the buy...