Ostensibly, to help prevent financial crimes the US Department of the Treasury is demanding more information from thousands of businesses in the US.

As of January 1, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is requiring more information about companies considered to be reporting companies or limited liability companies (LLCs), corporations, and businesses established through filings with the Secretary of State.   

Called the Corporate transparency Act (CTA) the new regulation claims the intention is to stop tax fraud, money laundering, and financing for terrorism by capturing more ownership information from US businesses and companies that operate in the US. Details that must be reported are business information, legal name, trademarks, and beneficial owner information.

Almost any kind of LLC will have to report, including farms and ranches organized as LLCs.

Existing companies have one year to file the report with FinCEN, and new companies are required to file within 90 days of creation or registration.  FinCEN has made a Small Entity Compliance Guide available to help small business navigate the reporting requirements. 

The IRS announced this fall that it is “staffing up” its enforcement operations. They are fast-tracking the hiring of more than 3,700 internal revenue agents across the country. It is the IRS’s second major hiring initiative under the Inflation Reduction Act, which gave the agency roughly $60 billion to rebuild its workforce and modernize over the next ten years.

This “staffing up” is a second one by the IRS, which launched one in early 2023, under authorization of the Inflation Reduction Act which approved the hiring of 80,000 IRS employees, and included funding to arm agents for the first time. About $45.6 billion of the $60 billion was earmarked for “enforcement.”

The IRS claims that the hiring will only replace some 52,000 employees expected to retire in the coming decade and will leave the agency with about the same number of employees (94,000) it had in 2010.