Legislative findings and declaration of purpose

The Legislature hereby finds and declares that the assistance, promotion, encouragement, development and advancement of economic prosperity and employment throughout this state requires an efficient, coherent, accurate and simplified system for the registration of businesses with state and local agencies. The Legislature further finds and declares that the establishment of such a system will promote consistent, fair and efficient compliance with registration, licensing and other similar statutory obligations by all businesses in the state. The Legislature finds that staff of the Secretary of State, the Department of Tax and Revenue and the Bureau of Employment Programs, as well as staff from other state agencies with an interest in the issue, have studied the need for, and the feasibility of, a simplified system of business registration and have designed certain elements of such a system, specifically, a common database of information regarding businesses registering with said agencies. The Legislature recognizes the need for continued involvement and cooperation by said agencies and it is the intent of the Legislature to build upon the work of these agencies in order to develop a simplified business registration system in the manner contemplated by this article. The purposes of the system created by this article are therefore to make government more responsive to the needs of West Virginia businesses in their dealings with government and to better enable government agencies to assure that all West Virginia businesses comply with legal requirements.