On April 1, 2021, FinCEN issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) requesting comments on new beneficial ownership reporting provisions included in the Corporate Transparency Act/Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, which was passed into law as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 on January 1, 2021. The ANPRM, published in the Federal Register on April 5, 2021, is requesting input on procedures and standards for reporting companies to submit information to FinCEN about their beneficial owners and also seeks feedback on FinCEN’s implementation of the related provisions of the CTA that govern FinCEN’s maintenance and disclosure of beneficial ownership information subject to appropriate protocols.
FinCEN’s announcement of the of the ANPRM states: “[t]he CTA amended the Bank Secrecy Act to require corporations, limited liability companies, and similar entities to report certain information about their beneficial owners (the individual natural persons who ultimately own or control the companies). This new reporting requirement will enhance the national security of the United States by making it more difficult for malign actors to exploit opaque legal structures to launder money, finance terrorism, proliferate weapons of mass destruction, traffic humans and drugs, and commit serious tax fraud and other crimes that harm the American people.”
The comment period ends on May 5, 2021.