States require businesses to register with them before operating in their states. Some states, like Delaware, offer significant protection of identities to the members or shareholders; others, like Oregon, favor ‘blue-sky’ theories of open disclosure. Congress now wants to open the doors of those shaded states’ entities but our PNW entities must join as well.

Starting on January 1, 2024, entities must report their ‘beneficial owners’ to the US Treasury, with FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) online.

A beneficial owner is someone who owns or controls at least 25% of the entity.

This will be (presumably) shielded but I don’t think the information you’re sharing with the agency is any greater than what you can find in the Oregon business registration rolls.

The registration isn’t live yet, but this is what I anticipate: the name of the entity, the state’s registration number, the EIN; and, for the beneficial owners, their names, birthdates, addresses, and what they call “a unique identifier number* and issuing jurisdiction.”

*Maybe that’s a drivers’ license? The rule references uploading a copy of that unique identifying number document but nothing else discusses it and the registration isn’t open yet, so I have no idea. I’ll update this blog once I know!

This isn’t anything new to the highly regulated alcohol industry, but it’s still nothing to ignore – there’s a $500 penalty for failure to register.

Businesses that were created prior to 2024 have a year to register with FinCEN – but new ones that are created in 2024 have only 30 days to do so!