Certain businesses affected by recent hurricanes will have an additional six months to submit beneficial owner information (BOI) reports, including updates or corrections to previous reports, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said in five notices issued Tuesday.

Extensions affect certain hurricane victims Beryl, Debbie, Francine, Helenand MiltonFinCEN said.

In the notices, FinCEN extended the filing deadlines for reporting companies that have an initial reporting period that begins the day before the date the specified disaster began and ends 90 days after that date and are located in an area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as qualified. for individual or public assistance and by the IRS as eligible for tax filing exemption.

Each notice includes the applicable dates for each storm.

FinCEN also said it will work with any reporting company whose principal place of business is outside disaster areas, but must consult records located in affected areas to meet the deadline.

AICPA Advocacy

The AICPA sought extensions for BOIs and reports of foreign bank and financial accounts (FBARs) in a letter of October 3 and sent to FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. FinCEN granted FBAR relief at the beginning of this month. In the letter, the AICPA asked FinCEN to adopt a policy that provides automatic filing extensions for victims of major disasters and matches the extensions provided by the IRS.

“AICPA recommends that FinCEN adopt a policy of automatically granting FBAR and BOI filing deferrals to coincide with extended IRS deadlines when the IRS grants deferrals under Sec. 7508A,” the letter states. “The relief granted by FinCEN should match the relief provided by the IRS for other filings, both in terms of extended deadlines and geographic scope.”

The AICPA has other resources Disaster Assistance Resource Center page.

— To comment on this article or suggest an idea for another article, contact Martha Waggoner at [email protected].