
MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Jan 2025)
The Corporate Transparency Act on Hold Until Further Notice
By Margaret M. Cassidy, Cassidy Law PLLC
In 2021, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”), which required most businesses formed or operating in the United States to file reports with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) identifying their beneficial owners.[1] In September of 2022, FinCEN issued the reporting requirements detailing the information that all businesses had to file with FinCEN by January 2025.[2] The CTA was designed to reveal beneficial owners in order to “disrupt financial anonymity” that allowed corruption, money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorism to hide behind companies that did not reveal their ownership.[3]
Ongoing litigation has derailed the CTA for now.
Mazzant Injunction
In early December 2024, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Judge Amos Mazzant issued a nationwide preliminary injunction (“Mazzant Injunction”) enjoining the CTA and the implementing regulations and declared that reports need not be filed by the filing deadline of January 1, 2025.[4] On December 23, 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed the preliminary injunction, finding that the injunction would irreparably harm the U.S. government and that businesses who had to file would suffer only minimal harm if required to file.[5] On December 26, 2024, the Fifth Circuit vacated its own order and stayed the injunction to “preserve constitutional issues” pending the Fifth Circuit’s merit panel’s review of the case.[6]