Dear Clients,

As many of you are aware, the new FinCEN Beneficial Owner Reporting deadline of 12/31/2024 is quickly approaching. 

As we left off in our previous communication back in Q1, MLW’s plan was to monitor the emerging legal challenges to this program over the course of the year before making a final recommendation in Q4 for our clients. 

It is now Q4 and we unfortunately are still waiting on large areas of clarity for this program. However, given the political climate in Washington at the moment, it seems unlikely that any progress will be made before the end of the year, at which point the original deadline will have passed. Therefore, at this time MLW is recommending all clients move forward with filing BOI Reports for their legal entities.

A few refreshers:

• Click here for information on which types of entities need to file (Hint! Don’t forget about your real estate LLC or vacation home LLC in your filings).
• Click here for a general overview of the BOI Reporting legislation.

Part of the emerging guidance is that interfacing with FinCEN and the filing of BOI Reports is a legal issue, which means that accounting firms are generally not able to assist with filing these reports. At MLW we see our role as one of educating our clients that this filing obligation exists and then guiding you to a resource to assist with that filing. 

Accordingly, we recommend the following resources that may assist you with filing your BOI Report:

Working with Gusto: Some good news is that Gusto has recently rolled out a BOI Report filing tool. This program has an additional cost of $49 and will be available for all entities that have active payroll with Gusto. While you can file for free directly through the FinCEN website (more on that below) we believe that the additional support provided by Gusto, both now and for future updates, will be well worth the small fee for most clients. Accordingly it is our top recommendation for clients at this time and we have prepared this resource page to help walk you through the process of filing with Gusto.  

However, that still leaves the non-payroll entities, such as real estate LLCs, investment LLCs, and similar, that need an option for where to file their BOI Report. For those entities, or for those who prefer not to file through Gusto for any reason, here are three additional options for filing:

1. Work with your attorney. Your local attorney should already be familiar with this process and able to provide you with the highest degree of assistance in filing this registration.
2. Work with Wolters Klowers’ BizFilings to complete your registration. BizFilings has been assisting with legal filings since 1996 and has an automated process to guide you through filing. Their “Do I Need To File?” quiz can be particularly helpful in assessing your filing requirement. This is similar to Gusto’s program but with the added benefit of being able to file non-payroll entities as well. 
3. Choose the DIY option by filing directly at FinCEN’s BOI website for free. There is a lot of helpful information on FinCEN’s website for how to complete the forms (and honestly from freelancers on YouTube too, which we can’t link to for legal purposes) such that many of you DIY-ers may find this not too complicated to complete yourselves.