If you’re feeling a bit of whiplash from the wild ride that is the federal court activity related to the Corporate Transparency Act’s Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting (BOIR) Rule, we understand! Just days after FinCEN announced on December 23, 2024 that an injunction temporarily suspending mandatory BOIR was lifted and reporting companies again must file their reports by the required deadline (which was extended to January 13, 2025, for existing entities), things took a sharp turn. On December 26, 2024, a panel of the same U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that overturned the injunction and made BOI reporting mandatory again decided to put the suspension back into effect.
Put simply, this means BOI reports are currently not required.
On December 27, 2024, FinCEN posted an update on its website, stating that “In light of a recent federal court order, reporting companies are not currently required to file beneficial ownership information with FinCEN and are not subject to liability if they fail to do so while the order remains in force. However, reporting companies may continue to voluntarily submit beneficial ownership information reports.”
What’s a Business to Do?
Per this latest development, reporting companies do not have to file a BOI report. However, they may file one voluntarily.
If your business entity qualifies as a reporting company and has not yet filed a BOI report, you must choose whether to go ahead and file one, even though it’s not mandatory at this time, or hold off and wait for the next court decision. Be mindful that this is an evolving situation and it’s possible that BOI reporting could be reinstated, and there’s no telling what the deadline will be if it is.
With steep penalties of $591 per day, fines up to $10,000, and even two years of prison time for not filing a BOI report (if required to do so), many business owners are erring on the side of caution and filing theirs to avoid the potential risks of noncompliance should reporting become mandatory again.
Please note that the information in this blog post is current on the publication date of this post. However, this is an evolving situation, and things could change based on new activity related to the court order. Businesses should proactively monitor developments so they remain informed.
CorpNet Is Here to Help
If you’d rather not “wait and see” and risk the potential penalties of not filing a BOI report, CorpNet can help you prepare and file one for your business.
