Nevada secretary of state pushes for flexibility over business fees

As Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar is the state’s top elections official. But his office has a number of other responsibilities, including registering businesses and corporations, and regulating Nevada’s securities industry. For the upcoming legislative session, Aguilar is seeking changes in law in both of the latter area. Photo by Tom R. Smedes / AP File, 2023

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar would like to remind residents that his office doesn’t just handle elections.

It’s also the first stop for any business looking to operate in Nevada — a process Aguilar wants to make more seamless.

For the legislative session opening on Monday, his office has submitted a handful of bills to adjust business license fees, increase language access for business owners and protect victims of investment fraud.

“We’re doing this in a collaborative approach,” he said. “We’re ready to work with the Legislature in the same way we’ve worked with the governor’s office and our other constituencies.”

Aguilar said he would also need the continued investment from the state to update Silverflume, a portal for business registration and tax payments that he called “antiquated.” With the upgrade already in progress, Aguilar said people were starting to see results.

Last month, he said he asked a business owner who had to resolve an issue through the secretary of state’s office how long they waited on the phone. Instead of hearing about the 45-minute to hour-and-a-half wait times people may be used to, they said seven minutes.

“To know that we are giving Nevadans their time back? When you talk about the time value of money, that’s significant to a small-business owner,” Aguilar said.

The office has added self-help tools, a redesigned interface and security measures to prevent fraud, according to the secretary of state’s website.

Aguilar is also trying to have Nevada keep its “Delaware of the West” moniker for business friendliness, a title for which, he said, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho are also vying. And right now, Aguilar said they’re gaining ground.

Wyoming and Idaho have a base fee of $100 to incorporate an LLC in their states and Montana has a $35 fee. In Nevada, it’s $200. Right now, Aguilar can’t do anything about that discrepancy, but a bill his office filed in November would change that.

“Giving us the flexibility to set fees and regulation will help us meet those demand expectations,” Aguilar said. “It’s going to only increase our revenue in the long run. Every dollar we make in commercial recordings goes directly into the general fund.”

This may seem like pocket change for Nevada, but Aguilar said commercial recordings bring in shy of $200 million for the state. Nevada’s declining market share means millions that could fund education and infrastructure going to other states.

Does that mean Nevada should lower or raise its fees?

“The market’s going to have to determine what it is we need to do to make sure we” can compete, Aguilar said. “Look, I’m not interested in decreasing our contributions to the general fund. What I’m looking at is saying, ‘How do we attract more business to Nevada?’ ”

The same bill also has an accessibility component, allowing his office to accept some documents in languages other than English.

Non-English documents can only be accepted alongside a translation, but the legislation would waive that requirement for languages the secretary’s office determines it can take on.

Just under a third of Nevadans speak a language other than English at home and more than half a million people in Clark County primarily speak Spanish, according to the 2023 American Community Survey.

Returning from the last session, Aguilar is reintroducing a bill to establish a fund for victims of securities fraud, such as pyramid and Ponzi schemes. While he said it had “overwhelming” support last session, the bill never made its way out of committee in the Assembly. A technical issue sent the office back to the drawing board.

Aguilar said most victims of securities fraud are retirees living on a fixed income, which can leave them with little ability to recover.

“They’re losing their life savings,” he said. “The intent of the restitution fund is to be able to give this person the opportunity to get back on their feet when they become a victim.”

The fund also serves as an incentive for people to come forward when they’ve been defrauded as Aguilar said some victims were too embarrassed to report the crime.

“We need to change that perception,” he said. “The faster we hold people accountable, the faster we get them out of the marketplace.”

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