State government: Secretary of State: fees.

(1) Existing law requires every corporation to file a specified statement of information with the Secretary of State and pay a $5 disclosure fee in addition to any other required fees. Existing law requires one-half of the amount of this disclosure fee to be used for specified purposes, including the development and maintenance of an online database, and the other one-half to be deposited in the Victims of Corporate Fraud Compensation Fund. This bill would instead require the first half of the disclosure fee to be deposited in the Business Programs Modernization Fund, which would be established by this bill. Moneys deposited in the fund would be made available, upon appropriation, to the Secretary of State of the purposes specified in existing law. (2) Existing law states that it is the intent of the Legislature that moneys deposited into the Secretary of State's Business Fees Fund be used to support the programs from which the fees are collected and provides that they shall be expended to the extent that appropriations are made in the annual Budget Act. Existing law authorizes the Secretary of State to charge and collect fees for preclearance of documents and expedited filings if the special handling does not cause disruption or delay in the process of the normal handling of documents, and if the implementation of the special handling is supported by an appropriation in the annual Budget Act. Existing law also specifies that copying and special handling fees shall be accounted as Secretary of State expenditure reimbursements. This bill would instead provide that, operative July 1, 2014, copying and special handling fees be paid into the Secretary of State's Business Fees Fund and would delete the requirement that the implementation of special handling be supported by an appropriation in the annual Budget Act.