In what Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler is calling a “fee holiday,” his office has announced that businesses outside Colorado that wish to do business in the state can expect to have their filing fees dropped from the routine price of $125 to $1.
The considerable price reduction — which runs from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1 — comes as the filing process for these so-called foreign-entity authority statements go paperless and move online.
“My aim with this initiative is to send a message that Colorado is making bold strides to create a more user friendly, intuitive system that saves our customers time and money, while keeping our fees among the lowest in the country,” Gessler said in a statement.
Prior to the online modernization, the secretary of state says, these forms typically required three to five days for staff to process and were plagued by rejections and filing errors.
Most of the revenue that the secretary of state’s office produces comes from filing fees.
Tony Gagliardi, Colorado and Wyoming director of the National Federation of Independent Business, says the initiative sends a good message but that it’s a “wait-and-see sort of deal” as to whether this will produce jobs.
However, he’s more interested in what the secretary will do for businesses located in Colorado.
“I would like to see an equitable reduction in filing fees Colorado businesses pay,” said Gagliardi, who works closely with Gessler and says the secretary of state has gone out of his way to be accessible to the business community.
“If you have a corporation here, you have to file annual reports that can add up,” Gagliardi said.
Gessler said his office can absorb the fee reduction and that fee holidays have successfully spawned online filings in the past.
Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655 or klee@denverpost.com or follow @kurtisalee on Twitter
