A Trump administration rule has exempted most businesses from part of the Corporate Transparency Act.
The U.S. Treasury Department previously wanted U.S. companies and individuals, including farmers, to report beneficial ownership information to their Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN. Attorney and University of Wisconsin Farm Law Outreach Specialist Kelly Wilfert says it’s, “Good news. We get to throw out this rule for the most part.”
Wilfert says the law was designed to show who the real owners were behind the LLC or corporation to help with financial crimes enforcement, but there was a lot of litigation nationwide and the Trump administration worked with Treasury leaders to put a new interim final rule in place. “It said all entities that were created in the United States including those that were known as domestic reporting companies and their beneficial owners are exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information.”
Wilfert says foreign companies are still required to report beneficial ownership information under the interim rule. “Keep in mind, if you work with a lender, if you have any financing, you typically are required to report this information to the bank anyway so you may still have to report it, just not to FinCEN.”
Wilfert says attorneys around the country followed this issue closely because of the large number of businesses it was going to impact.
