UPDATE TO POTENTIAL SHUTDOWN WITH WA STATE AGENCIES
The Washington State Legislature has not yet approved state operating and capital budgets for the 2017–19 biennium, which begins July 1. If the Legislature does not approve budgets by June 30, several state agencies will go through full or partial operations shutdowns. In the event of a shutdown, the DOL will suspend programs at the department for Uniform Commercial Code until the 2017-19 budgets are approved. In the event of a shutdown, please review the following information to avoid any disruptions in your business transactions:
Corporations Division
- All filing services at the Corporations Division should continue uninterrupted.
- The Division may not be able to issue UBI numbers on new registrations/originations.
- Data recorded in the Division may not transfer to other agencies such as the Department of Revenue or BLS leaving business records “not up to date” outside of the Division’s database.
- The Division may have limited access to Annual Report information filed or pending at BLS (reducing ability to fix errors).
Business Licensing and UCC Services
- Online services will shut down on June 27 at 11:55 PM.
- Annual Reports can still be mailed in but will not be processed until resolution of any shutdown. As an alternative, the Corporations Division will accept and process ALL Annual Reports if a shutdown were to occur. However, this may be subject to the collateral issues specified above as well as possibly others.
- Licenses, Legal Entity Registrations, renewal notices, and other miscellaneous documents processed before shutdown will be mailed out. Documents received, but not processed, before the shutdown will be delayed until the shutdown is resolved. It is unclear whether the file-date for such delayed filings will be the date of submission or the date of processing.
- Of particular interest, the BLS handles Business Corporation and LLC Annual Reports/License Renewals and Trade (Assumed) Name filings.
Contact the CORPSMART team directly at 800-737-8009 for additional information or to submit your filing.