The Corporate Transparency Act: What Estate Planners Need to Know – Video Replay

Congress enacted the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) under the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act on January 1, 2021.

The requirements of the CTA are being implemented “to help prevent and combat money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, tax fraud, and other illicit activity, while minimizing the burden on reporting entities.” That said, even FinCEN acknowledges the enormous reporting burden imposed by the CTA, which it most recently estimated to be over 118 million hours in 2024, with an annual burden of over 18 million hours thereafter.

The CTA added 31 USC §5336 to the Bank Secrecy Act with the title, “Beneficial ownership information reporting requirements”. The CTA has three core elements:

1. Reports to FinCEN – The CTA requires certain entities (each a “reporting company”) to identify itself, it’s primary owners and officers (each a “beneficial owner”), and certain professionals who helped to form or register the reporting company (each a “company applicant”). The reporting company must then report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) information sufficient to identify the reporting company, its beneficial owners, and any company applicants (“beneficial owner information” or “BOI”).
2. Control Access to Information – FinCEN will provide BOI to government regulatory and investigatory bodies, but it will not be made available to the general public. In addition, there are specific procedural requirements for government actors to access this information, along with civil and criminal penalties for improperly accessing or using such information.
3. Revised Due Diligence Requirements – The Secretary of the Treasury is required to revise Customer Due Diligence requirements for financial institutions to conform to the CTA, and account for the ability of financial institutions to access beneficial ownership information.

This program explains the key terms and concepts of the CTA.