Secretary of State Scott Gessler recently announced new legislation intended to streamline business filings with the Colorado Secretary of State. The legislation, known as Senate Bill 123, proposes to implement a “Business Efficiency Suite” to make on-line business filings with the Secretary of State less costly and burdensome. According to the announcement, the Business Efficiency Suite will include the following enhancements and upgrades to the current on-line system :
- Business Association Tool: A user account that will allow customers to associate multiple business records under one account, file multiple documents at once, and pay once for multiple filings.
- Records Management Tool: Enable customers to identify which business entities and charitable organizations they are registered agents for, easily determine when reports are due, and select their periodic report filing month.
- Prepaid Account: Provide prepaid account holders with online access to check account balances, view transaction histories, and deposit funds.
- Coordinated Filing: Provide customers with the ability to populate new filings and renewals with existing business filing information.
- Business Filing System Enhancements: Revise business forms to increase filing accuracy and implement usability enhancements to the business filing processes.
- Enhance Business Search Options: Provide the ability to limit business search results by entity type, status, domestic versus foreign, or address; and expand name availability search results to show filers similar names that are on record and help prevent similar business names from being filed.
- Web-enable Statements of Merger: Enable online filing of Statements of Merger using a filing “wizard” to guide a filer through the process.
- Web-enable Other Statements of Change & Correction: Enable online filing of changes and corrections of entity names, types, and jurisdictions for foreign entities and partnerships.
We will continue to monitor this proposed legislation and its potential impact to the business community. If you would like more information regarding filing requirements for you business, please contact our Business Law Group partner, David A. Closson at [email protected].