Colorado SOS doesn&#39;t take foreign credit cards. Default of acceptance?
<p>Incorporator I. who is neither US citizen nor resident wants to incorporate a Colorado corporation which costs a filing fee of $50. The colorado secretary of state only accepts two payment methods:</p>

<p>a) A prepaid account for frequent filers: This is out of the question due to the minimum deposit of $3000. I. only wants to incorporate 1 corporation.</p>

<p>b) Credit cards: This looks like it is the way to go at first, but then it turns out that SOS requires credit cards to be “issued in the US”. I. gets prompted for a billing address which has to be in the US and has to match the address which the issuing bank has on file. I.'s credit card, however, is issued in country L. and has a billing address in country G., causing the payment to fail.</p>

<p>SOS places an authorization on the credit card, causing $50 to be blocked for several days but the card never gets charged and the incorporation fails.</p>

<p>I. is taken by surprise because he's never seen this before; I. thought that the primary purpose of a credit card was to make international payments.</p>

<p>Now I. could try to work around this limitation by hiring someone in the US to buy a “valid in US only” Visa gift card from a retailer and ship that gift card to his home in foreign country G. Then, he could register the gift card to a false address in the US and proceed with his incorporation. The detour via the gift card would cost I. about $30. Yes, that's a $30 transaction fee for a $50 payment.</p>

<p>Now my question is:</p>

<p>1) Is it legal for I. to register a gift card to a false address?<br />
2) Does SOS's policy of not accepting international payments constitute a default of acceptance? Can I. force the SOS to accept his foreign credit card?<br />
3) What about the annual report filing fee which must be paid one year after the incorporation? Would the same conclusion also apply to the annual report filing fee or are there differences?</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>1) Is it legal for I. to register a gift card to a false address?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No. That would be fraud - the obtaining of something of value through dishonesty.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>2) Does SOS's policy of not accepting international payments constitute a default of acceptance? Can I. force the SOS to accept his foreign credit card?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I don’t know what “default of acceptance” means. No.</p>

<p>The Colorado SOS (and anyone else for that matter) can choose what forms of payment they will accept and that they will not accept. If they want to exclude foreign credit cards, or cheques, or cash, or Monopoly money they can.</p>

<p>Everyone has to accept cash (legal tender) for the settlement of debts but paying for a service in advance is not a debt.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>3) What about the annual report filing fee which must be paid one year after the incorporation? Would the same conclusion also apply to the annual report filing fee or are there differences?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>What about it? Yes.</p>

business payment colorado incorporation