Beneficial Ownership Interest and LingoSat
A new bipartisan law for business owners and a spacecraft made with unusual materials
Beneficial Ownership Interest (BOI) Law
I received an email a few months ago from my tax professional about a new bipartisan law that was passed that requires company owners to inform the government about who actually owns the companies. Since I have 2 LLCs, I had to register for this. According to Fincen.gov, this law was passed in 2021 as a bipartisan act. The goal is to limit “bad actors” who use shell companies to commit crimes or hide after conducting immoral business operations.
Filing for this was fairly easy. My tax professional included a link in their original email. When I clicked it, it took me to the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network website. Immediately I was presented with video tutorials explaining how to file. The e-filing is the easiest way. Below is a screenshot of the required information.
The information you have to fill in is standard. Your name and address, company name and address, as well as any other owners of the company. Once the information is complete, all you have to do is click submit. It was that easy. I definitely was overthinking the complexity of it. It took me less than an hour do do both companies. If this applies to you, then I recommend reaching out to whoever does your taxes and asking them about this. If you do your taxed yourself, then look into this and see if it applies to you. I will leave the links to the websites for the law below along with the Frequently Asked Questions.
https://fincen.gov/boi
https://www.fincen.gov/boi-faqs#A_1
LingoSat
In the previous newsletter, we looked at skyscrapers made of wood. Now, we will look higher than that. All the way into space, there will be a little satellite that will be considered the first WOODEN spacecraft in the world. Now while it might be funny to picture this as some sort of cobbled together ship made of balsa wood and nails, like an old tree house, this satellite does not look any different from any other satellite. The spacecraft will be called LingoSat. As you can guess, this is an experimental craft. The 2 groups in charge of this are researchers at Kyoto University, and a logging company called Sumitomo Forestry. I mean, I guess they had to get the wood from somewhere. This spacecraft is also small, like really small, like a 4 in cube levels of small. This is what is called a cubesat or a nanosatellite. The wood support is also constructed using a Japanese woodworking technique that does not require nails or screws. Friction keeps the pieces together. The ultimate goal is to see how the wood survives the vacuum of space. These parameters include how much it expands and contracts. The hope is that more spacecraft can utilize the special magnolia wood that was used. At the end of a satellite’s life, it gets deorbited to reduce the amount of space debris that orbits around the Earth. This causes the spacecraft to break apart and can lead to harmful materials raining down on the Earth. If the pieces were made of wood, then the toxicity can be reduced. The satellite is scheduled to launch September of 2024.
Artist's illustration of a wooden satellite in orbit around Earth. (Image credit: Kyoto University)
Artist's illustration of what is not launching into space. (Image credit: Cartoon Network)
resources:
https://www.space.com/japan-september-launch-first-wooden-satellite