Revisiting BOI's

[ILLMAS]

What is your take on preparing BOI's on behalf of your clients?

 

Now that I have a little more free time I decided to call my E&O insurance and was told I would be covered if I were to offer the service to my clients but when speaking to other accountants friends they don't know what to do.

[BulldogTom]

I am not touching it.   The potential for the client to not give updated information to report in the required timeframe scares me.   The penalties are just too high to justify the potential revenue from the client.  Plus, if I understand the rules correctly, you have to report yourself as the preparer of the document.

Some will do this, I will not.

Tom
Longview, TX

[Lee B]

I have to decided to limit my involvement to informing my clients of their obligation to report

I am not giving any advice or answering any questions.

BOI has nothing to do with providing accounting. payroll or tax services.

[Lion EA]

My E&O (NAEA group policy via Calsurance) said they are NOT covering preparers for this -- at this time. They did say that IF reporting BOI becomes a core service for tax preparers in the course of their biz, that they would consider covering in the future.

From Megan Killian/NAEA: "As of right now, Calsurance will not cover this under their E&O policy, and the consensus has been that most other providers will not be either. However, I suspect that this will change over time once it is more established and it is also demonstrated that this will be a core service offered by many tax and accounting professionals."

I do NOT want to report BOI for my clients. My biggest worry is that clients will forget to notify me of changes in ownership until next tax season, missing the short deadline for reporting changes. And, create new businesses without telling me until next tax season.

I don't think I could charge enough for this. Wresting true ownership info from clients will take time. Penalties are high. I can make money by preparing taxes all year long. Why break my stride to jump out of my tax software over to FinCEN and also spend the year making sure no client has made any ownership changes?! 

I will make sure all my biz clients know about it this summer. I hope to steal a 1-pager from someone who creates a thorough how-to flyer. 

[Lee B]

2 minutes ago, Lion EA said:

 

I will make sure all my biz clients know about it this summer. I hope to steal a 1-pager from someone who creates a thorough how-to flyer. 

First it's too complicated to cover in 1 page, given all of the exceptions and etc.

IMHO, creating a "How To Flyer" is offering advice. 

[Lion EA]

I'm hoping to find something (hoping to not write something myself) that says Congress passed a Corporate Transparency law that requires certain businesses to report their Business Ownership Information on the FinCEN site. Read more about it here to see if it applies to your business... Something short and sweet that tells them to do it themselves, maybe talk to your lawyer, but this is all I know about that, so do NOT ask me any questions.

I've heard about preparers creating how-to flyers with steps, screen shots, whatever. I do NOT want to do that. 

The gist of the law is WHO are owners, not how to report on FinCEN. And, the WHO is exactly what I do NOT want to be involved in deciding. Knowing which grown kid or minor kid has a hand in your biz isn't any thing I know or have the time to know. It's up to the biz owners to self identify.

I'm decades past retirement age and have no desire to add more work, especially non-tax work.

[Lee B]

Fortunately for me, the Oregon Secretary of State has published a two page guideline with live links that I am going use.

I am also going provide a live link to FINCEN'S guidelines which is 51 pages long

[Lynn EA USTCP in Louisiana]

[Randall]

I'm not doing it for clients either.  I'm waiting to see if they change the requirement.  Otherwise, I'll let them know about it and send them to a website for info.

[Lion EA]

What is substantial control? For example, husband owns 80%, wife 20%, adult son 0% but VP of marketing, and high school daughter 0% but VP of finance. Both H & W are the producers of the local TV shows as well as being the on-air talent. Does only husband report? Or, some combination of 2, 3, or all 4? Would it matter if the responsibilities stayed the same, but the "kids" didn't have VP titles? Is there a difference between the kid that's over 18 and the kid that under 18? I guess I have to go read the details at the website!

Thanx, Lynn, for your post. That's what I'll send my clients, with the website in large font, bolded, and highlighted.

[jklcpa]

1 hour ago, Lion EA said:

What is substantial control? For example, husband owns 80%, wife 20%, adult son 0% but VP of marketing, and high school daughter 0% but VP of finance. Both H & W are the producers of the local TV shows as well as being the on-air talent. Does only husband report? Or, some combination of 2, 3, or all 4? Would it matter if the responsibilities stayed the same, but the "kids" didn't have VP titles? Is there a difference between the kid that's over 18 and the kid that under 18? I guess I have to go read the details at the website!

Thanx, Lynn, for your post. That's what I'll send my clients, with the website in large font, bolded, and highlighted.

 

That's covered on the FinCEN site's BOI page of FAQs. See section D.

https://www.fincen.gov/boi-faqs#D_5

[Lion EA]

After reading all that, for one of my biz clients similar to my example, from what I've seen of them in action, I'd say the H&W are but the kids are not. In another one of my biz clients, I'd say all four are. In both cases, I think the one with the ownership interest would disagree with me (for different reasons in each case). So, I really don't want to be involved in these filings. Less and less the more I read. I'm sticking to tax!

[Catherine]

14 hours ago, Lion EA said:

So, I really don't want to be involved in these filings. Less and less the more I read. I'm sticking to tax!

I like to say, "I have easier ways to hurt myself!" and Eric has (or had?) a GIF for us on that exact topic.