FinCEN Extends the Deadline for BOI Reporting and Pauses All Enforcement

March 1, 2025

FinCEN Extends the Deadline for BIO Reporting

The current deadline of March 21, 2025, for reporting beneficial ownership information (BOI) has been extended by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and all enforcement actions have been suspended. FinCEN has stated that it will develop new regulations that will reduce "regulatory burden" on entities required to report.

According to FinCEN, the goal is to prioritize "reporting of BOI for those entities that pose the most significant law enforcement and national security risks", and the agency indicated that a new reporting deadline will be announced by March 21.

As small business owners and investors may recall, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), an anti-money-laundering initiative, became law in 2021, requiring certain companies to disclose the identity and information about beneficial owners of the entities. Certain new entities were also required to disclose the identity of "company applicants". Since most filings were originally due by January 1, 2025, the burden for some business owners and managers was significant, with potentially serious consequences for willful violations, including punishments of up to $10,000 and two years in prison. Court challenges caused the date to be pushed back to January 13, with a further extension of the deadline to March 21, 2025.

The announcement to extend the deadline and pause all enforcement action, released on February 28, represents welcome news to a variety of business owners and investors, because the agency has said that no fines or penalties are to be issued as a result of failure to file by current deadlines. The bottom line is that the March 21, 2025 deadline is no longer in effect.

The Stone tax advisory team will continue to monitor this area to share any important updates that might affect our clients and their businesses.

Stone & Company, LLC is a CPA firm based in Lexington Massachusetts.

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