New Treasury Beneficial Ownership Rule Defangs Transparency Law

A revised reporting rule by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network renders almost useless the intended database of company ownership information that aimed to combat money laundering and other crimes, tax practitioners said.

FinCEN and the Treasury Department last week released an interim final rule that narrowed the companies responsible for reporting ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act to only foreign-reporting entities. Treasury signaled plans to change the rules earlier this month.

That tapered scope means a little under 12,000 companies must comply on average per year, compared with about 32 million first estimated to be impacted by the reporting ...