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Secretary of State Ross Miller addresses the Nevada State Democratic Party Convention on June 26, 2010, at the Flamingo.
Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 | 2 a.m.
The imaginary Jane Smith, selling canned beans from her house and earning less than $27,000 a year, is exempt from the state’s $200-a-year business license fee.
But what about Jane Smith Canned Beans, LLC, making the same amount and also selling them from her home? Does that company have to buy a license?
From 2003 to 2009, such companies were required to shell out money to the state to do business. But in 2009, that changed, costing the state $10 million a year in tax revenue.
It’s a shift in state policy that Secretary of State Ross Miller takes responsibility for and said should never have happened. Miller has been on a yearlong quest to require thousands of home-based businesses on file as limited liability companies and corporations to again pay the business license fee.
His effort failed at the 2011 Legislature and at a legislative subcommittee meeting in December. Another legislative committee meeting in February could approve Miller’s proposed regulations, but he doesn’t think he has the votes. He is now pursuing his case in court.
The effort, which in the words of Miller will “close a loophole,” has drawn fire from Republican lawmakers and a trade group that registers companies. Expanding who pays the fee amounts to a tax increase on fledgling businesses, these opponents say.
The proposal, said Matthew Taylor, president of the Nevada Registered Agents Association, “does nothing but affect our state’s smallest enterprises.”
“The failure rate on home-based businesses are high enough without placing additional burdens on them,” he said.
The state never had the right to treat “natural persons” — human beings — differently than corporations and LLCs, he said, adding that Miller lost the policy argument in 2011, when his bill didn’t pass the Legislature.
“His office has no authority to ignore the outcome of his attempts to change the statute,” Taylor said.
Miller’s frustration at his inability to change the law is apparent. He said it reflects a larger unwillingness on the part of state lawmakers to tackle tough issues.
“All these questions that are raised about whether we have the political will to reform an unstable revenue structure in this state, this issue provides a perfect case study that the members of the Legislature don’t have the will to do it,” he said. “This is an opportunity to bring approximately $20 million over the biennium to the table by closing a loophole that didn’t exist until 2009. Many major business interests, including Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, supported it. And they still haven’t done anything with it.”
In 2003, with the state looking for money, lawmakers passed the $100-a-year business license fee. It was administered under the Department of Taxation. But the department was so understaffed that, it was widely believed, it only collected a fraction of the tax it should have. So in 2009, with the state again looking for money, lawmakers proposed increasing the business license fee to $200. Collection of those fees would be put under the Secretary of State’s office, which already collected information on companies.
Soon after taking over those responsibilities, the Secretary of State’s office interpreted the statutes to say that home-based LLCs and corporations making less than $27,000 a year were deemed exempt from paying the fee. When revenue failed to come in at projections, the office investigated and found almost 100,000 businesses — including a bowling alley and nail salon — had claimed the exemption, which at the time only required a check to an online form.
Miller said his office was stunned at the number of businesses that sought the exemption. Many were fraudulently filed, audits found.
Miller noted that national law enforcement agencies and legislation are criticizing states like Nevada that have lax incorporation rules for allowing “shell companies” that might have ties to money laundering and tax evasion.
In August, Miller stopped accepting home-based business license exemptions online. Now, operators must fill out paper forms and have them notarized.
Taylor and his group are suing over the new regulations and some of the questions that Miller is asking. If people are falsely filing claims, the state should go after them for perjury, he said.
“If the secretary of state believes that fraud has occurred, we believe he should pursue the individual,” Taylor said.
No study has been done to show the depth of the fraud, he said.
The Nevada Registered Agents Association has sued Miller’s office because it now asks for information like the company’s revenue and officers’ salaries, which are beyond the scope of its duties, Taylor said.
Miller said if it succeeds, the lawsuit would prevent his office from doing due diligence, claiming the registered agents want to go to an “honor system” on paying the state business tax.
Miller filed a counter claim, arguing that his office, in 2009, remade policy that had existed since 2003. In it, Miller asks the court to force LLCs and companies to pay the $200 business license fee.
If the registered agents are successful, Miller said his office wouldn’t be able to verify anyone’s information.
“We’ll be holding up a banner in front of the Carson Capitol that says, ‘If you pay the state business license fee, you’re an absolute idiot.’ We wouldn’t be able to verify anything even if you lied,” he said.
Really? REALLY? There aren't multibillion dollar companies, i.e., hotels, casinos, NV Energy, MINING companies, that you should be looking into for fraud?? Just us little guys trying to stay afloat and not lose our homes by our home-based "businesses"? Fees to operate a business are like pennies to those big shots and they can afford much more than we can. $200 bucks is a heck of a lot of groceries to my household! $200 bucks for those corporations is a lunch at Caesars.... Come on, get a clue. STOP penny pinching the small guy trying to help our economy, trying to keep our familes together and our homes and food on the table. Greed has run this city for a very long time, was "founded" on it, and when NV Energy, a monopoly for the past 40 years (under various other names, of course) can continue to raise rates year after year and then turn their PROFITS over to shareholders at our expense, perhaps it is time to start taxing THEM...egads, this city is dying and people like this idiot will prove, with hindsight, to be just another fool taking us down. Check into the tax loopholes for the mining industry in this state for the last 80 years...repeat EIGHTY YEARS!! Oh my God, what causes stupid people to remain that way and then get elected or appointed???? There are hundreds of other BIG businesses to tax to make up for the debt, yet you want my measly couple hundred and put me just that much farther in the hole....sad, sad day for Nevada....again...
Just face it, Democrats are anti-business.
Any "business" fees should be based on the amount of money generated by sales or services rendered. A "one-tax-fits-all" policy is grossly unfair. I've owned a licensed "home-based" business for some 20 years and have paid whatever fees are required and have no problem with that when they are based on revenue raised. But, to hit me and others in my position with the same fee as a business garnering 100 times or more what my annual sales are makes little sense to me.
"From 2003 to 2009, such companies were required to shell out money to the state to do business."
Home-based businesses should be exempt from all big regulation. The only purpose for creating a corporation over a dba/sole proprietorship is a buffer from liability. A business trust used to be the better form, but now Miller's office is intruding far too deeply into its officers' affairs.
"$200 bucks is a heck of a lot of groceries to my household!"
Kellan88 -- you made an excellent point. Ordinary people struggling to survive should not have to jump through the same hoops as the big corps, with their deep pockets and hired suits and undue influence on government. Unfortunately for us all, local regulation on top of Miller's bureaucracy guarantees no small business is likely to be 100% in compliance with all their rules and regs.
Government needs to get out of the way so We the people can get this economy back on the road to recovery!
"The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the State or to his neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so far as it may tend to criminate him. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." -- Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 74 (1906)
I find it very hard to believe that the state lost 10 million in revenue. At $200 a pop that comes to 50k businesses that didn't get a license. Someone needs to check there math. I'd sooner believe they're making this number up just to screw the little guy trying to get started out of his garage.
The article fails to mention that the Secretary of State's Office, in enforcing the law in the fashion that they are doing, is adding in requirements to the exemption that are not noted in law, such as forcing the business to also have a Nevada residence. Many out-of-state businesses register in Nevada due to its favorable laws towards businesses, and quite a few of those are exempt from the fee as it's written in the law, but are denied the exemption by Miller's office because of the interpretation that has been magically added because the Legislature wouldn't do it for him.
The problem, though, is that many of these companies will have no qualms in going to other states whose laws are just as favorable -- such as Wyoming -- and getting the same service for fewer dollars than Nevada is trying to force them to pay. Thus, in the Secretary of State's quest to punish some people who might be illegally filing, he's inviting other people who are otherwise willing to come and give Nevada's general fund a few hundred dollars per year -- people who would be legally entitled to the exemption -- to spend that money elsewhere, all over a $200 fee that makes Wyoming a cheaper option.
Businesses need more access to capital and investment, not less taxes. Someone paying for an LLC probably won't sweat too much over a $100 or $200 annual fee. But they probably do need $10,000 or more for equipment, inventory, machinery and other fundamental parts of their business in order to grow (and hire people). THAT, not taxes, should be the focus for law makers.
"Someone paying for an LLC probably won't sweat too much over a $100 or $200 annual fee."
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Given the amount of people who will file in Wyoming or Delaware instead of Nevada as a result of these actions, you'd probably be surprised at how many people do sweat this small amount of money.
Meanwhile street vendors harassing tourists for tips, are waved thru by Metro, the county and the State...
This guy must be a Democrat