December 9, 2024
Filing beneficial ownership information for your business is now — just voluntary.
You don’t have to do it. The December 31st deadline is gone. You will not incur any fines if you don’t file it. But if you want to file it – you still can.
That’s according to a brand new notice from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It says FinCEN is fully cooperating with a federal judge’s order but is also quick to say – this fight isn’t over.
As I told you in this video last week – a federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction putting a nationwide pause on this requirement for all business owners in the United States to file a ton of personal information about who benefits from and directly owns each business operating in this country. This pause is only meant to last until the case reaches a conclusion. It’s important to understand — the judge did not rule that the corporate transparency act – which is the law that established the BOI – was unconstitutional. The judge just said he was putting a temporary pause on the requirement for business owners to file a BOI statement and eliminating the December 31st deadline because it appears – at least to the judge — that the plaintiffs will likely win this case. The judge said if the plaintiffs were forced to produce this beneficial ownership information to the federal government while the case was still ongoing they would suffer irreparable harm.
Now – I mentioned this fight isn’t over. The in that same notice – FinCEN points out that this federal judge in Texas is just one judge with one opinion. There are other federal judges in Virginia and Oregon who heard similar cases challenging this BOI requirement and reached completely different conclusions…saying there’s nothing wrong with forcing business owners to disclose who benefits from and actually owns a business because that helps the government catch criminal organizations using their businesses to launder money, finance terrorism operations and drug trafficking among other crimes.
The federal government says they fully stand by the corporate transparency act and this BOI requirement and have already appealed this preliminary injunction.
For those of you asking what happens if you already filed it – nothing. You already filed it. It’s not like you can unfile it. Also – it’s worth noting – as I have reported since last year — filing the BOI is free and it’s easy on FinCEN’s website. If you have a simple business structure you could absolutely do it yourself and it takes like 10 minutes.
The question is – what will the government’s position on the BOI requirement be once the trump administration takes over. Since this was a law passed by both democrats and republicans in congress back in 2021 it’s definitely possible that Trump’s DOJ will continue with this fight in the courts – but it’s also possible, they could choose to let these court orders stand and not challenge them anymore. I’ll keep watching it and let you know if something else happens.
Look at the notice from FinCEN here.
