The Corporate Transparency Act saga took a welcome turn yesterday after a Fifth Circuit Court panel reinstated the nationwide injunction against the statute.
As a result of the order, Main Street businesses are not required to comply with the Corporate Transparency Act’s reporting requirements until the Fifth Circuit is able to more fully consider the injunction and the underlying merits of the legal challenge. The key paragraphs from that ruling are below:
On December 3, 2024, the district court entered an order enjoining enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act and its corresponding Reporting Rule. The Government requested a stay of the preliminary injunction, which the district court denied. The Government appealed, and on December 23, 2024, a motions panel of this court granted the government’s emergency motion for a stay pending appeal. The order also expedited the appeal to the next available oral argument panel.
The merits panel now has the appeal, which remains expedited, and a briefing schedule will issue forthwith. However, in order to preserve the constitutional status quo while the merits panel considers the parties’ weighty substantive arguments, that part of the motions-panel order granting the Government’s motion to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the CTA and the Reporting Rule is VACATED.
The panel also announced today that it would hear arguments on March 25 on whether to keep the injunction in place while the broader case is heard by the full court. So absent the federal government appealing yesterday’s decision to the Supreme Court – and SCOTUS intervening in the case – the injunction will stay in place through at least the end of March 2025, at the earliest. In other words, yesterday’s order means covered entities do not need to file their Beneficial Ownership Information reports prior to that proceeding.
Meanwhile, we are still waiting on the Eleventh Circuit ruling on the case from Alabama and expecting a decision soon from the Western District of Michigan where the judge has already signaled his sympathy for the plaintiffs.
And finally, the new administration takes office on January 20th and S-Corp is working to get an administrative delay implemented through the end of 2025. Key members of the Trump team have already weighed in against the CTA (here, here and here). We just need to turn those concerns into action.
The unpredictability we’re seeing in the courts is a central part of our argument for an administrative delay. Yesterday’s ruling is a welcome development that should give us the time necessary to get that done.