Are there any secretary of state or other corporate filings for carsillustrated.com
Executive summary
A targeted review of the supplied reporting finds no secretary-of-state corporate registration or government filing records specifically tied to the domain carsillustrated.com; the available sources include the Cars Illustrated website itself and unrelated corporate‑filing resources, but none show a state registration or SEC/BOI filing for an entity named “Cars Illustrated” at that domain [1] [2]. By contrast, the reporting does surface public filings for Cars.com Inc., a publicly traded company with extensive SEC records — a separate corporate actor whose filings should not be conflated with records for carsillustrated.com [3] [4].
1. What the sources actually contain about Cars Illustrated and the domain
The primary document that directly references carsillustrated.com is the site itself, which presents a revival-style magazine and digital products (e.g., digital editions and merchandise) and describes editorial history and product offerings, but the site content as provided does not disclose corporate formation details, a state of incorporation, or a corporate registration number [1] [2] [5]. The supplied snippets therefore demonstrate a visible consumer-facing presence — a functioning website selling digital magazines and gear — but they do not include embedded evidence of secretary-of-state filings, registered-agent names, or business entity numbers associated with the domain [1] [2].
2. Confounding public records for similarly named or adjacent companies
The dataset supplied contains multiple references to public filing systems and a clearly documented public company, Cars.com Inc., with EDGAR/SEC filings and S-1 registration statements visible in the reporting; those entries confirm that Cars.com has a Central Index Key and SEC filing history and are unrelated corporate records for a separate entity with the ticker CARS [3] [4] [6]. This matters because casual searches or headlines can conflate “Cars Illustrated” with “Cars.com” or other automotive brands; the provided SEC sources underscore that publicly traded companies will appear in government registries, whereas a small private publisher may not have comparable federal filings [7] [3].
3. Payment processors and filing‑service footprints that can obscure who’s behind a name
The reporting includes references to third‑party filing/payment processors and incorporation services such as Corporate Filings LLC and similar vendors; these services frequently appear on bank statements or in search results and can create noise when trying to attribute corporate filings to a branded website, but the supplied snippets indicate those are payment processors, not evidence of the magazine’s secretary‑of‑state registration [8] [9]. The presence of these service providers can be a red herring: a site may accept payments and use outsourced filing services without those vendors being the legal registrant of the brand itself [8].
4. New federal BOI requirements raise search expectations — but do not show a match
Recent reporting in the sources points to the Corporate Transparency Act and state/third‑party services offering help with Beneficial Ownership Information reports, implying more businesses will have federal‑level records beginning in 2024–2025; however, none of the supplied snippets show a BOI filing or FinCEN entry for carsillustrated.com specifically [10] [11]. That absence in the provided material means the data set does not confirm whether Cars Illustrated has filed BOI forms or is exempt — the reporting simply does not include such a match.
5. Conclusion, caveats and next investigatory steps
Based solely on the supplied reporting, there are no secretary‑of‑state registrations or other corporate filings identified for carsillustrated.com; available documents show a commercial website and product listings [1] [2] and public filings for an unrelated public company [3] [4], but the dataset contains no state‑level incorporation records or FinCEN BOI entries tied to the domain. This conclusion is bounded by the limits of the supplied sources: a definitive search would require querying individual state business registries (secretary of state portals), domain WHOIS historical records, and FinCEN BOI databases — searches that are not present in the provided reporting. Alternative explanations consistent with the available material are that Cars Illustrated operates as a privately held entity, a sole proprietor, or under a different legal business name; those possibilities cannot be confirmed or disproved here because the reporting lacks the necessary registration records.