Earlier today a House Financial Services subcommittee held a hearing entitled, “Following the Money: Tools and Techniques to Combat Fraud.” The hearing covered many topics, but the conversation returned time and again to the awful Corporate Transparency Act.

The hearing kicked off with Congressman Warren Davidson (R-OH) – who leads the charge to repeal the statute – making the case for the Treasury Department’s recent overhaul of the CTA rules:

Presumably, operating a business or even a homeowners association, means you are engaged in illicit finance. Meanwhile, our Constitution says that …

(Read More)

Treasury last week made good on its promise to deliver much-needed relief from the Corporate Transparency Act, a move that did not go unnoticed by the Main Street business community. In a letter sent earlier today, over 100 trade associations applauded a new interim rule that exempts American companies from the CTA’s onerous reporting requirements and implements a risk-based enforcement approach instead. The letter reads:

This rule appropriately narrows the scope of entities required to report BOI by exempting domestic reporting companies and U.S. persons who are beneficial owners of foreign reporting companies. By doing so, the Department …

(Read More)

More good news on the battle over privacy.  Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Friday released the following statement:

[T]he Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing an interim final rule that removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act.

In that interim final rule, FinCEN revises the definition of “reporting company” in its implementing regulations to mean only those entities that are formed under the law of a foreign country and that have registered to do business in any U.S. State or Tribal jurisdiction by the …

(Read More)

The actions by the new Administration last week to curtail reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act were a huge victory for millions of Main Street businesses, but they were by no means the final word on the subject. To ultimately kill this ill-conceived statute, we need help from Congress or the Courts. On that front, here’s three key events in the last two weeks worth highlighting.

First, any legislative effort to repeal the CTA will have to go through the Senate and get the support of at least 60 lawmakers. Last week’s letter from Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and …

(Read More)

The millions of businesses that rode out the recent roller-coaster of court rulings and chose not to file their CTA reports to date should be feeling pretty good right now. Fresh on the heels of FinCEN’s announcement that it was pausing enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act pending the enactment of new regulations, the Treasury Department yesterday shed some additional light on what the new reporting regime will look like. Here’s the press release:

The Treasury Department is announcing today that, with respect to the Corporate Transparency Act, not only will it not enforce any penalties or fines associated …

(Read More)