Due date is 1/1/25 or there’s a $10,000 penalty!
In 2021, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act. This law created a new requirement to file a beneficial ownership information report (BOIR) as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to make it harder for bad actors to hide or benefit from their ill-gotten gains through shell companies or other opaque ownership structures. “Beneficial owners” are the individuals who ultimately own or control companies.
How to know if you have to file a BOIR
Not every business needs to file a BOIR, but you need to take a few minutes to do some simple research or talk with an advisor—an attorney, CPA, or a tax professional is a good place to start. You can also check the official government website. Typical of many government sites, the effort to be clear and concise isn’t too successful. However, this FAQ document is pretty good: Beneficial Ownership Reporting – Key Questions
The key requirement for having to file a BOIR, according to the FAQ document, is “… whether you had to file a document with your state’s secretary of state or a similar office to create your company or, for foreign companies, register it to do business in the United States.”
The filing process
Linguists who have incorporated or created an LLC do not typically have a sophisticated structure, so the filing process is pretty quick. The same can be said for most language companies. The FAQ document describes what information is needed. I don’t see anything mentioned that isn’t already public information, and most companies already have an annual reporting requirement in their state of registration. Unless there are changes to your organization, or an error was submitted, the report only needs to be submitted once.
This video describes the process. You may find the slightly quick pace of the presentation a bit confusing to follow, but the key is that there are only a few pieces of information needed, and it’s a simple process. If you are filing for yourself as an LLC/S-Corp, you will need to enter:
- The legal name of your business
- DBA or FBN, if used
- EIN
- Where you filed your business (typically the state your business is in)
- Business address
- Your legal name
- Date of birth
- Home address
- Unique identifying number from an acceptable identification document, and the name of the issuing jurisdiction of that identification document*
- Photo of the identification document
If you started your business in 2024, the government also wants to know the same information for the person who submitted your paperwork to form the entity—you can freely call that person to ask and get a copy of their ID too.
Here’s the link to file your report: BOIR E-Filing
Is the due date for filing a BOIR really 1/1/25?
Well … as you can imagine, there have been lawsuits filed to challenge the implementation of the law, and a judge in Texas has issued a stay, delaying implementation. The government is still allowing companies to file. It’s just that it’s voluntary for now, pending the outcome of the court case.
Richard Antoine, MIB/MBA
Executive Director, InterpreterEd.com
*This document could be a state-issued driver’s license, state/local/tribe-issued ID, or U.S. passport.
