Come on Ross Miller, the Nevada Secretary of State, Think about it!
Ross, I have a great idea for you. Abolish the Nevada business license tax. Just get rid of the whole thing. Your purpose is to collect $325 a year from every business entity. Why not just charge $325 for the NV annual list. You’re about to submit legislation to over-regulate Nevada businesses again, and you could actually do something right now to define your career as the Nevada Secretary of State.
Let’s think about this for a minute before you blow this off:
-You’re grinding your state employees into the ground. When I call them now, they are confused, frustrated, and they get chewed out all day because of your confusing system.
-The new NV procedures and fees have caused an exodus of Nevada businesses to move to Wyoming and basically ruined the Nevada business climate with uncertainty, more red tape, confusing rules, and higher fees. No one will set up 8 LLCs in Nevada anymore to own 8 separate rental properties. It’s just too much trouble and money.
-The entire NV business license tax thing doesn’t make any sense with the home business exemption.
-You’re trying to get $325 a year out of every business entity, but you’re making it as confusing and hard as possible. When I try to get money out of people, I try to make it as easy as possible.
THINK OF HOW MUCH EASIER YOUR OPERATION WOULD BE WITH NO BUSINESS LICENSE AT ALL. I mean, you’re setting up “Task forces” to track down people that are wrongly taking the home business exemption. Really? Just dump the whole thing, have no exemption, and just charge $325 for the annual list. It eliminates about 3-5 minutes of time it takes to file it online, it eliminates the question of if you owe it or not, and eliminates wasted time for your staff. Now you’re having to take home based business licenses in the mail wasting your state workers time, you’re having to make judgment calls on who’s home based, and who’s not. I mean it’s just silly!
Here’s an even better idea: You will be a total hero!! Dump the $200 business license, and just charge $275 for the list. You will LOWER the cost for almost all businesses in NV, you make things simpler, and you can claim that you simplified how to operate a business in Nevada, simplified the operations of the NV SOS, and lowered the fees for all Nevada businesses. Ultimately, by making things easier, you may start bringing back more business filings into NV instead of them going to other more friendly states.
Competition wins; it always has and always will. Nevada got started as a place to incorporate in because of no income tax, low fees, and privacy. If you make forming a business AND maintaining one cheaper and simpler, more business will come to your state!!! Wyoming is exploding because you raised fees. It’s time to look at this from a competitive angle. Try competing with other states instead of trying to wring as many dollars out of NV businesses as possible. It’s a whole different approach isn’t it? It’s one that works and always will.
It doesn’t really matter to me… The people you’re hurting are the Nevada Incorporation firms that specialize in Nevada. Many of them are my clients for other states, and if their businesses grow and succeed maybe mine will too. Maybe overregulating registered agents in Nevada will cause some of the sketchy registered agents to go away and ultimately help some of the Nevada Incorporation Specialists that are strong enough to make it. But if it’s always going to be a pain to do something as simple as paying your annual fee, those companies will never get back to the level of business formations they used to see, even with other registered agents going out of business.
You’re at a pivotal point in your career. You could be:
Ross Miller that saved and improved the Nevada Incorporation industry,
OR
Rosscoe Coltrane that chased the Dukes (NV businesses) around and crashed into a tree (Ruining the NV Business Filing Industry.)
I hope we get to see what Ross Miller is really capable of doing. I got a couple other great ideas for you. Just give me a call!