Lawsuit puts Shreveport, Bossier business filings on hold

If you own an LLC or a small business and you’re racing to beat the Jan. 1 deadline for the new Beneficial Ownership Information reporting, take a breath.

As of now, the BOI filings through the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Network (FinCEN) are on indefinite hold.

BOI came about as a part of the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act as a way to quickly determine business ownership in an effort to prevent anonymous shell companies that launder money, evade taxes and commit other financial crimes.

The National Federation of Independent Business filed a suit, claimed the reporting requirements (one document, filed once) were burdensome and that BOI’s constitutionality was questionable.

“The court’s reinstatement of the nationwide injunction is a welcome sigh of relief for small businesses,” said Rob Smith, Senior Attorney of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center. “Thankfully, the court’s latest decision recognizes that the CTA and BOI reporting requirements pose serious constitutional questions.”

According to Kiplinger, 32.6 million small businesses, from corporations to LLCs, would have had to submit the BOI form. Treasury warned that neglecting to file could lead to civil penalties of up to $591 per day and criminal penalties of $10,000 in fines and/or up to two years in prison.

In October, Bob Thames, one of the owners of Single Source Business Solutions in Shreveport, told the said that BOI reporting was flying under radar, and only a small number of his clients had filed.

The good thing, he said, is if you must eventually file, it is easy to do.

“If you watch a five-minute YouTube video, you could file for almost any LLC. You would understand how to do it with that,” he said. “You have to have your EIN, you have to have a copy of your or any owner’s identification, whether it be like a license or a passport, and then you upload those things and fill out a couple pages, and you’re done from there.”

The treasury said that while the lawsuit is being worked out, businesses may continue to file their BOI reports “voluntarily.”