Hello
Effective January 1, 2024, any business you have will have to be registered with the Treasury Department. It is a big deal, so don’t overlook it. The fine is $500/day with no limit. I originally read it and thought there was a $10,000
limit on the fine. No, the $10,000 is in addition to the $500/day. And just to throw in some incentive, there is a two-year prison gig they want you to attend if you “willfully” avoid filing.
Companies existing prior to January 1, 2024 have until the end of 2024 to register. Companies created in 2024 have 90 days to register. Those created after 2024 will have only 30 days to
register.
Don’t panic yet. If you have an existing company, you’ve got all year to register. We don’t have all the details to help you fill out the registration form yet, but we will get them to you in a full walk-through sometime in early February.
The good news is: FinCEN, which is part
of the Treasury Department, put out their registration form for “Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting” (BOIR) on January 1, 2024, as promised. It actually looks like an easy form. You have to take a picture of your ID and submit it, but that is probably the trickiest part.
When you get right down to it though, there are apparently a lot of traps. For example, you have been
advised to make your living revocable trust the member of your LLC or the shareholder of your corporation. In the Q&A FinCEN put out a few days ago, they couldn’t answer how to report a trust. They made some reference to other materials.
Ben and I are paying $500 to participate in a three-hour tutorial on the BOIR that is hosted by the big attorney’s association involved in small
businesses. In their ad to get us to pay for the class, they advertise that there are a lot of traps.
We have decided to investigate more before we do our video. We will do one video for existing companies and one for new companies. The reporting for each is a little different.
Be
patient and hopefully we will have the questions answered in the next couple of weeks.
