The Illinois corporation annual report is a comprehensive report on the activities of the company throughout the past year. The purpose of the annual report is to provide shareholders with information about the financial performance and the activities of the company.

Corporation Annual Report

After you form a corporation, you need to complete a few steps every year or so to make sure your business remains in compliance.

The annual report needs to be filed by one of the officers of the corporation. The officer must be listed in the section of the report for officers.

Many business owners find Illinois annual reports confusing and expensive. It is essential that corporations in Illinois keep complete corporate records at their main place of business.

Most business owners find it faster to file the annual report online. However, business owners who decide to file the annual report online are automatically charged a $50 expedite fee.

The annual report for each business is due during the month the business owner had originally registered the corporation with the state of Illinois. The annual report is due by the end of said month. For example, if you formed your corporation in the state of Illinois on March 12, your annual report will be due by March 31 every year.

Business owners should keep in mind that they cannot change the registered office or registered agent by electronically filing the annual report.

However, if a corporation needs to change their registered office and/or registered agent, they can use the paper form BCA 5.20/5.10. This paper form is called the Statement of Change of Registered Office and/or Change of Registered Agent respectively. However, to do this, the corporation needs to be in good standing with the state.

Any annual report that is filed electronically will be viewed as the original filing even if the secretary of state returned a paper-form annual report un-filed to be revised. 

All interest and penalties incurred by the current date need to be paid. These penalties and interest need to be paid along with the franchise tax and the filing fee at filing time.

If the corporation possesses property outside of the state of Illinois and/or conducts business outside of the state of Illinois, the annual report can't be filed on the Internet. The annual report can't be filed on the web if changes have been made to the following:

  • Issued shares 
  • Paid-in capital
  • Authorized shares

In such an instance, the annual report needs to be filed on paper. The appropriate documents making the changes to the paid-in capital, authorized shares, or issued shares need to accompany the annual report.

You can find out the class, par value, and number of shares by checking the corporate records. You may find this in your corporate record book or in the articles of incorporation.

It is possible to have various classes of shares. In some cases, business owners will have a series below the classes. Larger companies may take advantage of this system for investors so that no real rights are granted to the investors purchasing a certain series. However, most corporations list the class as "common." The majority of corporations leave the field for the series blank.

About 95 percent of all corporations in the state of Illinois don't have a series of shares. The par value for shares is usually a dollar, a penny, or zero. A business owner can change the par value at any moment in time.

The articles of incorporation should include information about the number of shares authorized.

Most business owners issues shares at the first meeting of their corporation.

There are some business owners who forget to hold an annual meeting and still more who simply don't hold annual meetings. To look up information related to shares, you will need to take a look at your past annual reports. You may even find it necessary to look through the annual meeting record book to determine whether you even issued shares. While it's fine to put zero, it is more likely that you issued every share that you authorized.

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