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

The extensions affect certain victims of hurricanes Beryl, Debby, Francine, Helene, and Milton, FinCEN said.

In the notices, FinCEN extended the filing deadlines for reporting companies that have an original reporting deadline beginning one day before the date the specified disaster began and ending 90 days after that date and are located in an area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as qualifying for individual or public assistance and by the IRS as eligible for tax filing relief.

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 the disaster areas but must consult records located in the affected areas to meet the deadline.

AICPA advocacy

The AICPA had sought extensions for BOI and reports of foreign bank and financial accounts (FBAR) in a letter dated Oct. 3 and sent to FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. FinCEN granted FBAR relief earlier this month. In the letter, the AICPA asked FinCEN to adopt a policy providing automatic filing extensions to victims of major disasters and to match the extensions that the IRS provides.

"The AICPA recommends that FinCEN adopt a policy of automatically granting FBAR and BOI filing postponements to coincide with the IRS's extended due dates when the IRS grants postponements under Sec. 7508A," the letter read. "The relief provided by FinCEN should match the relief provided by the IRS for other filings, both in terms of the extended due dates and the geographic scope."

The AICPA has other resources on its Disaster Relief Resource Center page.

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Martha Waggoner at Martha.Waggoner@aicpa-cima.com.