By Kate Diehm

If you are the owner of a Connecticut business entity (or a foreign entity registered to do business in Connecticut), you may have received an email from the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s Office with the subject line “Business Annual Report Due”. That email includes information about changes that have been made to the annual filing process. These changes are as follows:

• All business entities must now update their registered agent information in their annual report.
• All business entities must now include their NAICS code in their annual report. (If you do not know your code, you can find the list at https://www.naics.com/search/.)
• Effective July 1, 2020, the filing fee for the annual reports of limited liability companies, limited partnerships and limited liability partnership will increase from $20 to $80.
• Effective January 1, 2020, the Business Entity Tax is eliminated.

Additionally, the Secretary of the State’s office will administratively dissolve business entities for failure to file annual reports. While the office has always been empowered to do so under the relevant business statutes, in the past they have been lax in enforcing the annual report filing requirement; now they have stepped up their compliance efforts and have begun dissolving entities.

What does this mean for you as a Connecticut business owner? If your company is administratively dissolved, it may leave it unable to defend or bring a lawsuit to court in the company’s name, or leave it vulnerable for another entity to take the company’s name. It is now more important than ever to ensure that your annual reports are up to date and filed every year on a timely basis to avoid administrative dissolution.

If you need assistance in bringing your annual reports up to date or have any questions regarding the new filing requirements, please contact Kate Diehm at 203-202-9686 or kdiehm@ruccilawgroup.com.