The BOI filing requirement stems from the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) enacted in 2021 and took effect on January 1st, 2024. The CTA is a federal law that requires certain types of businesses, including Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), to report information about their beneficial owners to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. According to Congress, without the CTA, individuals would benefit from hiding illegal operations through these business entities. The CTA and BOI are meant to make this harder to accomplish.
This article is meant to serve as a public service announcement and help walk you through this process. If you’re a small business, especially an LLC (even single owner), you’ll need to file this paperwork on time.
Setup
To get started, ensure you have the following information:
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Your LLC creation documentation as received when you created your LLC (like the Colorado Secretary of State, for example, but for your state instead).
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Your Employer Identification Number (EIN) for your LLC.
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Your business snail mail address.
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A copy of personal identification (i.e. Driver’s License, Social Security Number, Passport, etc). You’ll need this information when identifying yourself as the single beneficial owner.
Timeframe
If you created your LLC prior to January 1st, 2024 then you don’t need a FinCEN ID and will acquire one after completing the above process. You have until January 1st, 2025 to complete the paperwork.
Otherwise, if you created your LLC after January 1st, 2024 you only have 30 days to complete the paperwork and must acquire a FinCEN ID prior to filing your BOI.
Steps
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Visit the BSA E-Filing System.
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Click on the BOI E-FILING button to be redirected to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
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Click on the BOI Getting Started button to begin your e-filing. There are three options to choose from. I chose to File Online, if that helps.
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Follow the form prompts to fill in information accordingly.
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If you created your LLC prior to January 1st, 2024, then there is a checkbox in the form stating as such and allows you to ignore filling in an entire page of information. Otherwise, you have a bit more information to supply.
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Once you’ve submitted your e-filing, ensure you download a copy of your filing for your personal records.
💡 At the bottom of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network page, there is a big blue Q&A/Help button you can click to gain access to several PDFs on filing instructions, further walkthroughs, a reference guide, and much more in case the above isn’t enough information.
Penalties
The penalties for not complying or missing your deadline are heavy:
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Civil: Up to $500/day for each violation with a cap of $10,000.
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Criminal: Up to two years in prison with fines up to $10,000 if discovering your failure to report was a federal crime.
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False Information: Willfully providing false information means three years in prison with fines up to $10,000.
Maintenance
At the moment, it’s unclear if you have continuously update this system with any changes on your side. Sounds like it might be within 30 day window with additional fines if not done in a timely manner.
History
The history of how BOI evolved has been turbulent and confusing which is captured below:
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2024-12-23: BOI is reinstated and will, once again, penalize companies that don’t comply by 2025-01-15 as detailed here.
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2024-12-03: BOI is no longer enforceable until further notice due to a preliminary injection filed by Texas Top Cop Shop versus Garland. Details can be found via Forbes and The National Law Review.
Resources
If you’d like additional reading, the following might be of interest:
Summary
I hope the above is of help. Don’t delay or forget to do this if you own an LLC since the fines are not trivial.