By Frank Tumminello
If your company was formed or is operating within the United States, it’s most likely one of the more than 33 million entities required to submit a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Report in 2024.
If this is news to you, you aren’t alone. The U.S. Department of Treasury hasn’t exactly done a great job of educating the small business community about the new requirements, and the guidance that is available is muddled with government jargon.
We’ve got you covered, though. Keep reading for a simpler explanation of BOI reporting requirements.
What is BOI Reporting?
The newest reporting mandate quietly went into effect on January 1st of this year as part of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). The law requires disclosing the identities of persons—called Beneficial Owners—who have control or significant influence over a company, including names, addresses, and ownership percentages.
Click here for a complete list of information required on the BOI report.
The purpose of beneficial ownership reporting is transparency. Information will be monitored by the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and used to prevent financial crimes like money laundering, corruption, and tax evasion.
When Are BOI Reports Due?
There are a few types of companies exempt from reporting mandates, but most are required to submit their initial BOI Reports by the end of this year, or sooner. The exact due date depends on your company’s date of formation:
- Company Formed Prior to 2024: Report is due by December 31, 2024
- Company Formed During 2024: Report is due within 90 days of formation
- Company Formed After Jan. 1, 2025: Report is due within 30 days of formation
After your initial report is filed, you will need to report any changes to your beneficial ownership information to FinCEN within 30 days as a Change of Information.
What Happens If You Miss the BOI Reporting Deadline?
As with other compliance requirements, failure to submit your BOI report can result in steep fines, civil and criminal penalties, and, in very rare cases, imprisonment. Your business doesn’t want any part of that, which is why it’s best to get the report out of the way now before the deadline sneaks up on you!
How Do You File a BOI Report?
New reports mean paperwork. For those who want to handle it themselves, FinCEN provides a free filing system and a PDF to disclose the necessary information. But the process takes a minimum of 2-3 hours (FinCEN’s estimate), offers little guidance, and there is no way to securely store your beneficial owner information, which means any time there is a change to your ownership structure you’ll have to start the BOI paperwork over from scratch.
For those who want to avoid the headache, securely store company and beneficial ownership information for quick filing, and guarantee accurate filing the first time, there’s FileForms.
The FileForms platform guides you through collecting all the necessary information for your BOI report, and we take care of filing it with FinCEN for you. We’ll securely store your data so it’s easy to make updates, and you can even have your beneficial owners upload their own information directly to FileForms through an email link. It’s so simple that you’ll be on your way to BOI compliance in just ten minutes.
We’ll offer guidance and all the support you need to file your BOI report accurately with FinCEN. So when you’re ready to get that latest compliance requirement out of the way, head over to FileForms.com.
About the Author
Frank Tumminello
CEO and Co-Founder of FileForms and comes from a decade-long background of working in the financial services and technology industry with bootstrapped, owner-operated businesses. Prior to FileForms, he was an investor, acquirer, and value-creation resource in several financial services, insurance, and healthcare businesses throughout his private equity, corporate development, and investment banking career. Frank holds his B.S. in Physics and a minor in Mathematics from Bates College.