This is directed more at the CTA legislation than the court challenges, but as a small business owner (I am also a retired civil servant) trying to determine the scope of this legislation, my experience has been one of frustration. My wife and I have been running a small horse boarding business for over 2 decades, and per the recommendat…
This is directed more at the CTA legislation than the court challenges, but as a small business owner (I am also a retired civil servant) trying to determine the scope of this legislation, my experience has been one of frustration. My wife and I have been running a small horse boarding business for over 2 decades, and per the recommendation of our attorney at the time, we established an LLC. Since then, our attorney became a county family judge and retired (I also retired from the county), and we have filed the requisite annual filing fees without much thought about it.
Just before Christmas (2024), a friend of ours who also occasionally performs contracted work on our farm mentioned the CTA requirement for filing the "BOI" information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN). He had learned of this from his accounting firm. I was somewhat incredulous, and spent hours researching the legislation. I contacted both our accounting firm and our attorney (who, understandably, had time off for the holidays), and finally found neither was familiar with the filing requirements. Our accountant took an online training course about it, and learned of the court challenge / injunction / stay / vacating.
I told our accountant and attorney that, with the threat of "fines of up to $591 per day, adjusted for inflation, and possible imprisonment" for not filing on time, I made the decision to drudge through the FINCEN web site filing process. I was left a bit frustrated and angry with the federal government for (1) not effectively communicating this requirement to affected businesses, or requiring the appropriate state agencies to do this on their behalf, and (2) not providing clear enough information at the respective web sites for me and/or our accountant and attorney to definitively determine if our business was subject to the filing requirement (there are 23 fairly broad categories describing entities that are exempt).
The bottom line is that the federal government now has a digital copy of both my and my wife's driver licenses, and an attestation that we alone are the "BOI"s for our business. Considering the government's intent with the legislation to fight such things as money laundering and terrorism, I am not persuaded that this process for the CTA will be very effective (but will certainly cause administrative headaches for the 32+ million legitimate businesses who will try to comply).
This is directed more at the CTA legislation than the court challenges, but as a small business owner (I am also a retired civil servant) trying to determine the scope of this legislation, my experience has been one of frustration. My wife and I have been running a small horse boarding business for over 2 decades, and per the recommendation of our attorney at the time, we established an LLC. Since then, our attorney became a county family judge and retired (I also retired from the county), and we have filed the requisite annual filing fees without much thought about it.
Just before Christmas (2024), a friend of ours who also occasionally performs contracted work on our farm mentioned the CTA requirement for filing the "BOI" information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN). He had learned of this from his accounting firm. I was somewhat incredulous, and spent hours researching the legislation. I contacted both our accounting firm and our attorney (who, understandably, had time off for the holidays), and finally found neither was familiar with the filing requirements. Our accountant took an online training course about it, and learned of the court challenge / injunction / stay / vacating.
I told our accountant and attorney that, with the threat of "fines of up to $591 per day, adjusted for inflation, and possible imprisonment" for not filing on time, I made the decision to drudge through the FINCEN web site filing process. I was left a bit frustrated and angry with the federal government for (1) not effectively communicating this requirement to affected businesses, or requiring the appropriate state agencies to do this on their behalf, and (2) not providing clear enough information at the respective web sites for me and/or our accountant and attorney to definitively determine if our business was subject to the filing requirement (there are 23 fairly broad categories describing entities that are exempt).
The bottom line is that the federal government now has a digital copy of both my and my wife's driver licenses, and an attestation that we alone are the "BOI"s for our business. Considering the government's intent with the legislation to fight such things as money laundering and terrorism, I am not persuaded that this process for the CTA will be very effective (but will certainly cause administrative headaches for the 32+ million legitimate businesses who will try to comply).