The United States’s progress on implementing the beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements contained within the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) earned it praise from the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The FATF upgraded the United States to “largely compliant” with its recommendations on transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons. The designation, announced in a report published Tuesday, snaps a run of seven straight evaluations where the country was deemed noncompliant.
“The United States’s upgraded rating is a result of nearly a decade of hard work by the Treasury Department, along with our interagency partners, to stop the flow of dirty money through anonymous companies,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a press release. “As the world’s largest economy, we have a unique responsibility to safeguard our financial system from criminal exploitation. We’re fully committed to strengthening the implementation of the FATF’s global standards as we work to advance transparency and fairness across the U.S. financial system.”
The BOI reporting requirement of the CTA took effect Jan. 1 and requires reporting companies to file information about their beneficial owners to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by Jan. 1, 2025, or within 90 days if they create a new company in 2024. Though the FATF favors the rule, its constitutionality was called into question earlier this month by an Alabama judge’s ruling.
The Treasury announced March 11 it appealed the judge’s ruling.
Despite its praise for the United States, the FATF still flagged the country as noncompliant in three areas of its review, all of which related to the regulation, supervision, and reporting requirements of designated nonfinancial businesses and professions.
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