RENO — The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) filed a petition with the secretary of state Tuesday as part of a campaign to change Nevada law and compel the mining industry to pay higher taxes to alleviate state budget woes.

The coalition is seeking signatures for a petition to get a question on this year’s ballot to require that mining companies contribute more to the state’s general fund out of its gross, or total, revenues rather than from net proceeds, the sum of companies’ earnings after deductions.

“We want to rectify a situation where great wealth is being exploited and taken from our state while a substantial source of revenue we need in this state is being ignored,” PLAN executive director Bob Fulkerson said.

A total of 97,002 signatures is needed to get the question on the 2010 general ballot and, if voters approve it this year, it would then go on to the 2012 ballot and go into effect in 2013.

The mining industry generated $5.7 billion in minerals sales from the Silver State in 2008. Companies paid a combined total of $40 million in net proceeds taxes, or about a 1 percent rate, Fulkerson said. Had 5 percent on gross proceeds been required that year, the general fund would have received $284 million.

The greater share the state receives, the more Nevada education and other state services could benefit in the down economy, Fulkerson said.

Nevada’s gross product value of certain mines can be worth about $500 million, but Fulkerson said the mining industry isn’t paying any tax on them because of “sweetheart deals” of deductions.

He added that PLAN took the issue to the Nevada Legislature this past session, but many lawmakers are remaining quiet or hesitant to approve a change.

“It really shows a lock that the mining industry has on the state,” he said.

Nevada Mining Association (NMA) president Tim Crowley disagrees with PLAN and its call for a change to the state constitution.

“I think it’s wrong to single out any industry to fix the state’s fiscal woes,” he said. “We’ve worked in full cooperation with lawmakers in the past to address fiscal issues and we supported a broad-based tax increase in ’03 and we supported an increase in ’09.”

Crowley said the NMA paid $90 million in 2009 taxes in advance to help Nevada’s cash flow.

“We do recognize there are fiscal issues to be addressed, but looking to one industry to solve those issues is just wrong,” he said.

He added that he and other NMA members will need to review PLAN’s initiative further and that he’s not certain what the impacts of higher taxes might be to the various companies.

“If you took PLAN’s numbers at face value, what PLAN says is there would be a 300 percent increase on businesses and in times when we’re in a deficit, hitting any company with 300 percent is profound,” he said. “Some businesses will absorb the impacts better than others.”

He added that some minerals are also performing better in value than others at this time.

“We’re really fortunate that gold is doing very well, but not all minerals and metals are,” he said. “This was pretty obvious it’s going to impact different mining operations. It applies to geothermal and lithium and gold companies and we’ll have varying degrees of impacts on all of them.”

In 2007, according to the Nevada Division of Minerals, more than 6 million ounces of gold were produced from the state at $695 per ounce. Today, gold is valued at about $1,100.

PLAN’s northern Nevada coordinator, Jan Gilbert, said the industry’s assistance is necessary.

“We are always criticized, ‘Cut spending, cut government, we spend too much,’ ” Gilbert said. “But the reality is … we’re 50th in spending on government. We are as cheap as you can get. Just yesterday, we scored 50th in education, again. I’m sick of it. I’m tired of being last. I want to have our state be a place where people want to come and invest and bring their small business.”