WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has received over 100,000 filings disclosing true owners of U.S.-based companies to be stored in a congressionally mandated registry aimed at cracking down on shell companies.
Yellen's announcement — delivered to a crowd at Fincen's Vienna, Virginia., headquarters — came only a week after the agency began accepting beneficial ownership information reports. Yellen commended Fincen and its recently appointed director Andrea Gacki on the milestone and highlighted the importance of financial transparency at a time when the U.S. is concerned with geopolitical instability in both the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern conflicts.
"Around the world, lack of transparency, specifically due to opaque corporate structures, makes it easier to conceal illicit activity," she said. "Information on beneficial ownership will support our law enforcement colleagues in making arrests, prosecuting offenders, and seizing ill-gotten assets."
The BOI registry was mandated by the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act, which passed Congress as part of a defense spending bill in 2021. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted the database will help prevent bad actors from conducting illicit finance while hiding behind the anonymity of shell companies.
Companies are only required to submit such information — including beneficial owners' identification documents and address — once, and are required to update or correct as needed.
Existing applicable reporting companies, or those registered for commerce in the United States prior to January 1, must file their initial reports to Fincen by January 1, 2025. Companies established in 2024 have 90 calendar days to file after their company's effective registration.
Fincen previously announced it would release a trio of rules governing businesses' reporting requirements; access by law enforcement and financial entities to the database; and a revised customer due diligence (CDD) rule outlining how financial institutions can utilize the database for anti-money-laundering compliance.
The first of these — known as the "
Fincen will adopt a phased approach to BOI access, beginning with a pilot program for key federal agency users in 2024. Subsequent stages will extend access to various government agencies, law enforcement partners and financial institutions.
Along with the business database, Yellen says, Treasury plans to propose additional regulations early this year to address money-laundering risks associated with real estate.
"We aim to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking early this year that will be an important step toward bringing greater transparency to residential real estate transactions," Yellen noted. "We are [also] considering next steps to address risks associated with commercial real estate."
