Mo. legislation would cut fees paid by businesses

Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander on Wednesday announced plans for legislation to cut fees paid by Missouri businesses to the overall lowest in the country.

The proposal will be pre-filed by Sen. Wayne Wallingford, R-Cape Girardeau, and will seek to reduce or eliminate numerous fees for new and existing businesses that must file paperwork with the secretary of state.

The goal of the legislation will be to only charge a processing fee for the majority of filings in the secretary of state's office. Kander said the idea for the proposal came from multiple conversations with Missouri entrepreneurs.

"When you talk to business owners around the state and those who are starting businesses, one of the first things they tell you is the more convenient and the more ease they find in dealing with the state for their business, the more time they can spend focused on their business," he said, "which is a good thing for the Missouri economy and helps create jobs."

Kander said he has high hopes for the legislation and believes it will appeal to legislators from both parties. It's a step in the right direction toward making Missouri the go-to state for entrepreneurs and he said that would be a benefit to all Missourians. The proposal will apply to several types of business entities, including corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies and not-for-profits.

Kander's announcement comes on the heels of a new online filing system launched by his office in July which allows nearly every business form filed with the secretary of state's office to be filed through a website. Before the online system, Missourians were only able to file five business registrations online.

These steps are part of an overall goal Kander said he has been working toward since his first day in office. Finding ways to help business owners and entrepreneurs is key to helping the state thrive, he said.

"I'm a very big believer in the idea that ... as a state, we have to do everything we can to cultivate Fortune 500 ideas and not just Fortune 500 companies," Kander said. "Every large employer in the state, every successful company at some point was a brand-new company. At some point it was a startup. So everything we can do to make it as easy as possible for people to enter the process of starting their own business just makes it more likely we will have more homegrown, successful companies in the state."

The legislation already has the support of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The group said in a Wednesday news release that it plans to work with Kander and Wallingford to pass the legislation.

srinehart@semissourian.com

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