Lee Phillips Reminds us of the FinCEN Deadline

FinCEN – which requires the registration of all corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships, and other entities, along with information on all of their Beneficial Owners – is due by the end of the year. FinCEN has issued some delays for companies in areas that have been affected by hurricanes. See below for details.

It is all a pain, but not too hard. Check out my homey video on YouTube where I walk you through the registration process, just to familiarize you with the process.

Get Your Registration Going

I haven’t found anything generally on the horizon that might affect your obligation to file for FinCEN. I don’t see any court cases coming up before the end of the year, for example.

I have started to file for my companies. I have my LegaLees LLC for speaking and educational materials about asset protection and tax stuff, then I have a number of LLCs that own my investment properties. Everything has to be registered.

I got my FinCEN number for my personal information. It is the same information that I would have to give on each company registration, but once I have registered as an individual, then all I have to do is put my personal FinCEN number on the company registration.

Getting a personal FinCEN number, if you have more than one or two companies, makes the registration of each company easier and it has the advantage that when my personal information changes (new driver’s license, address change, phone change, birthday or blood type change, etc.) then I simply make the change on my personal information file and it automatically reflects into each company filing with that number on it as a beneficial owner or company applicant.

If you had an attorney do the filing, you will have to get all his information, upload of his/her driver’s license, and the whole 9 yards. It might take time to get all this information together, so start on it now.

FinCEN estimates that the first year of compliance with the beneficial ownership registry will cost reporting companies $22.7 billion and hundreds of millions of work hours.

Buckle up, because you had better get on the ride soon. Don’t we love the government regulating us?

Lee Phillips, JD
United States Supreme Court Counselor