If you own a small or midsize company, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) may feel like another federal filing issue for you to track. The CTA once required many companies to send information about their businesses to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). That filing identified certain people who owned or controlled the company. With penalties tied to missed filings, many owners have spent time trying to understand what the rules require from them.
Your main concern is likely whether your own company still has a filing duty. If you created your business in Georgia or another U.S. state, FinCEN no longer requires you to submit a beneficial ownership information (BOI) filing. Different rules may apply if you created the company outside the U.S. and later registered it in Georgia.
U.S.-formed companies no longer file
If you created your company in Georgia or elsewhere in the U.S., FinCEN exempts it from the CTA filing requirement. You do not have to send FinCEN a BOI report for that company.
The exemption also covers U.S.-formed companies that submitted a report under earlier rules. You do not have to revise a prior filing when ownership details change. This means BOI filing is no longer one of the federal tasks you have to track for that company.
Some foreign companies still report
Your duties may differ if you created your company in another country and later registered it in Georgia. FinCEN still requires certain foreign companies to submit ownership details unless an exemption covers them.
If your company falls within that group, you do not report BOI about U.S. persons. You could still have to provide information about certain foreign owners or others who control the company. FinCEN explains which foreign companies remain covered and what they have to submit.
Check where you created your company
The place where you created your company helps determine whether the CTA filing rule applies to you. You may want to review your formation records and compare them with FinCEN’s current guidance. If you are also reviewing how you set up your company, it might help to revisit your business formation records.