Business owners and corporate directors can now file articles of incorporation, annual reports and other information required by the state without leaving their office or home, courtesy of a new, online filing system.
The secure electronic filing system was recently installed on the R.I. Secretary of State Web site to make it easier for corporations to do business with the state, Secretary of State Ralph Mollis said last week.
“We’re getting the message out to corporations that they can file from their home, from their business, while they’re on the road,” Mollis said. “It doesn’t have to happen from 9 to 5, and what it allows them to do is what they do best, and that’s run their business.”
The secretary of state’s office is in the midst of an aggressive marketing campaign to spread word of the electronic filing option in advance of a March 1 deadline for the approximately 35,000 for-profit corporations doing business in Rhode Island to file annual reports with the state, listing their directors, officers and other information.
The electronic filing system is being well received, Mollis said. In response to a mass mailing by his office to every corporation in the state informing them of the option to file their annual reports online, about 40 percent of the roughly 10,000 corporations that have already filed their papers did so via the secretary of state’s Web site, he said.
That percentage of online filers was significantly higher than his office expected for the first year in which the system is available, and is expected to grow significantly in the next few years, Mollis said.
Business owners still can choose to file by mail or in person at the Secretary of State’s office at 148 West River St. in Providence.
Just as the R.I. Division of Taxation experiences a rush of business in mid-April in the days before the annual deadline for filing tax statements, the Secretary of State’s office typically receives a great number of the annual report filings from corporations close to March 1, said Maureen Ewing, director of corporations in the secretary of state’s office.
Based in past years, about 27,000 for-profit corporations required to file their papers will meet that deadline, Ewing said. The secretary of state revokes articles of incorporation on about 2,600 such businesses that fail to file each year. Corporations that have their articles of incorporation revoked but are still doing business in the state face a $50 penalty and are required to obtain a letter of good standing from the division of taxation, Ewing said.
The secretary of state’s office purchased its online information-management system from the state of Massachusetts for $100,000 in December 2006, and spent several months modifying the software to meet its needs, Ewing said. Massachusetts paid about $2.5 million to develop the information-management system about eight years ago, she said.
The system enables corporations and other entities to do much more than file annual reports. Just about any form or business document kept by the secretary of state can now be filed, searched and viewed online, Ewing said.
The system also contains digital images of every paper document filed with the secretary of state since August 2007, she said, enabling the public to access virtually every piece of information available at the secretary of state’s office.
Mollis said he implemented the information management system as part of a larger strategy to use technology to make the secretary of state’s office more efficient, make it easier for the public to access its information and positively impact the state’s business climate.
Last week, the secretary of state’s office introduced legislation to allow nonprofit corporations and limited-liability companies to make required filings electronically as well. Mollis said he expects the bill to pass in the current legislative cycle.
“Our goal is to try to make it easier for people to do business in Rhode Island, for them to realize that this can be a business-friendly state,” he said. •
