The Corporate Transparency Act: What you Need to Know

Poised for Exit

The Corporate Transparency Act: What you Need to Know
Our guest for today's show is Scott Seiler, Founder and Partner at Seiler Law. Scott and his team practice in the areas of business M&A, employer representation, and several other related practice areas that pertain to the needs of entrepreneurs.
The requirements for filing under the Corporate Transparency Act are important to know and understand exactly who's required to file, who's required to be named in the filing, and the deadlines for filing depending on when the company was registered with the Secretary of State.
General requirements are as follows:
Companies with 20 employees or less
Revenues of $5MM per year or less
There are interests other than the owners who may need to be included in the filing.
The reason for 'picking on' the smaller companies is due to the large number of LLC Holding Companies in existence in the US. The government is trying to find out who the owners of so many shell companies are. The tactic for filing layers of ownership from Holding Company to Holding Company is tied to terroism, tax evasion and money laundering.
And, any person with "Beneficial Ownership Information" (BOI) must be named in the filing. A person considered to have a beneficial ownership interest includes persons with significant decision making power (think CFO, CEO, President) regardless of whether they have any ownership in your company. The BOI form is must be completed and submitted. Scott's firm has been completing these on behalf of many clients, so if you are unsure of who needs to be named in your BOI, contact Scott's firm at seilerlaw.com within the deadline requirements.
Penalties for not filing are quite severe. It's not clear whether professional advisors would be penalized for neglecting to convey CTA requirements to their clients. Most accounting firms are notifying or have notified their clients, but do the owners understand, and are they taking it seriously?
By covering this topic for our listeners, we hope to help prevent as many owners from paying these penalties as possible. Please share with your colleagues and advisory team, so they can do the same. Awareness of this requirement is low, as evidenced by the percentage of companies who have filed so far. Those who wait until December to do so could experience a system overload.
Scott also touched on some new employer related laws that owners need to be aware of.
Listen to the episode here
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