Melvin Varghese:
Before we jump into today's podcast session, just wanted to take a moment to thank the team over at Alma for supporting today's podcast session. Alma is spelled A-L-M-A and Alma is a wonderful option if you are a, particularly if you're a solo practitioner in private practice, that maybe doesn't want to take insurance fully, that primarily wants to be private pay, but just wants to hedge a little bit, especially given some of the uncertainties that we've had economically here over the past several years. So with Alma, you can take as few as one client that takes insurance while having the rest of yours be private pay, But the really cool thing with Alma is that they actually handle all of the insurance craziness that none of us as therapists want to deal with. So whether that is managing billing, verifying benefits, making sure that you're actually getting paid, that's the other cool thing too. So if you see a client, Alma actually guarantees payment within two weeks, even if they themselves have not been reimbursed by insurance. You can learn more about Alma and the wonderful services that they provide. It's not just like a insurance credentialing and billing service. They offer a bunch of things from an online directory for therapists, so you can get ideal fit referrals, to CEUs and a bunch of other workshops, which I'll mention when I talk about them here in the middle of our podcast. But you can learn more about Alma and the awesome work that they're providing over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma. sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma, and there's a discount code just for STC listeners there. Hello, hello. Welcome to today's session of Selling the Couch. I hope you're doing well, having an incredible day. So today's podcast is actually something that you should absolutely listen to if you are a therapist in private practice based here in the U.S. We are talking about the Corporate Transparency Act, what therapists need to know. This is a brand new act and it's required that you are in compliance by the end of 2024. The process, it sounds very scary, but the essential point of the Corporate Transparency Act is to reduce the amount of money laundering and all of these things that are happening when folks are creating shell companies and stuff like that. So especially if you have an LLC or an S-Corp, please take a moment to listen to this session. So I am joined by Dan Mayer, and David Yud. David is a licensed psychologist. Dan Mayer is an attorney. Again, this session is just for informational purposes only. Definitely consult with your attorney and or accountant as you navigate this. But we're talking about this Corporate Transparency Act. In simple language, what is it? What are the requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act when it comes to being a therapist? And then also, what does the filing process look like for therapists, both solo practitioners and group practitioners? So if you're a group practitioner, for example, does every one of the therapists that are working under you, do they also need to file those questions like that? And then we get into some things like what are the implications of not complying with this act, as well as even the constitutionality of this act. There's a whole bunch of articles online with regard to this. And so I think you're going to find this session incredibly helpful. And so we'll just jump in. Here's my conversation with Dr. David Yud and Dan Mayer. Hey, Dave. Hey, Dan. Welcome to Selling the Couch.

David Yood:
Thanks.

Dan Mayer:
Thanks for having us. Thanks, Melvin. Good to see you again.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, great to see you. This has actually been a while since we've done a three-person one. So this is either going to be epic or it's going to be a failure, but we'll see. We'll roll with this and high hopes, right? Low Robert or whatever it is.

Dan Mayer:
It's going to be a spectacular thing. So it's fine. Okay. But we're assuming for the high volume.

Melvin Varghese:
Yes, absolutely. When you guys reached out over the summer, I mean, Dan, you and I have known each other five plus years. Dave, we're just getting to know. Yeah, it's crazy. And you've worked with a lot of therapists. I mean, that's primarily your practice in working with, you're an attorney by profession. You work primarily with therapists to navigate the legal stuff that they have to figure out. You're also valuable resources for us in our online course, Mastermind, as therapists think about courses and how to legally and ethically do that. Dave, I know you guys have been doing a lot of cool stuff together, including a podcast. And I'm excited for you to be here because you're a psychologist in private practice. So you're navigating this. And I think to get that perspective, I think will be really interesting. We're talking about the Corporate Transparency Act, what therapists need to know, Dan, in super simple language, because like legal stuff scares the heck out of me sometimes. What is the Corporate Transparency Act?

Dan Mayer:
Okay, so a couple things to know. First off, the Corporate Transparency Act is actually the subact of another act, the subact of another act, right? So believe it or not, in New York State government, you know, Corporate Transparency Act is actually part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which is in itself part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021.

David Yood:
May I just say, may I just interrupt Dan and say he asked for super simple language.

Dan Mayer:
You're doing great so far. I just want people to know, like, this is where it's coming from, right? But it went into effect as of this year, okay? And so what it basically means is it requires certain business you know, what they title as a reporting company, to file something with the federal government, confirming that you are who you are and that you do own or have some sort of interest in this reporting company. It is reported to and you file with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, in the long words, FinCEN as we call it, and that's through the Department of the Treasury, with the federal government, right? Just a quick kind of analysis of what that means and why This is now being asked of people and therapists. Essentially, the goal was to combat money laundering, financial crimes, money laundering, terrorism, things like that. And so what they were finding was bad guys were using shell companies to do this, and they didn't have a good way of tracking it. So they decided that through this law, they could have those who do qualify to have to file some information, which is then put into their database. One other point I want to add to people, because I've actually gotten this question, is, okay, well, what does the federal government do with this information once we file it? It does sit in a database that can be used by FinCEN, and they also are authorized to disclose it, and I have a list here, so I'm just going to read it out of memory, to U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, with court approval to other agencies, to non-U.S. enforcement agencies, like judges, prosecutors, and then with the consent of a company, you know, there's practice to their financial institution, or the regulator should govern finance. That's just a little bit of kind of the ice on the cake there what we're talking.

Melvin Varghese:
So the way that I understood it, it basically is a way for the federal government to verify that you have like a LLC or an S corp or whatever is set up in the US, that it's doing what it's supposed to, it's not doing something illegal.

Dan Mayer:
and foreign. So, it's anybody doing business in the United States. And yeah, the goal is to say, look, we want to know who you are. So, that way, if you're doing something bad, we can track you and figure out what you're doing and what company you're dealing with. The reality is, of course, for all those listening, right, this is not, they're not really concerned with you, right? But they want to have that database, right? The other thing to know is if you've filed a registered lease that you filed with your state, right, your LLC or state knows who you are, and the state knows what the registrants are, but the federal government didn't necessarily know that. And there's a question about constitutionality, which we can talk a little bit later. But generally speaking, the federal government's like, look, we don't have this information readily available, so we want this information. That's why we're doing it.

Melvin Varghese:
Got it. Dave, switching over to you, I know as a clinician, you're thinking about this, like, how are you thinking about this for your private practice?

David Yood:
Well, when I first learned about this, the first way I think about it was a little bit of a panic because the enforcement is very, very scary. They have a whole list of ways that they say they can go after you, including jail time and fines, daily fines for being out of compliance. And then I found out what it took to comply. And then I was very relieved because it took about 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. to go on the website, input the data that I already had, it didn't take any research, click submit, and then I washed my hands of it, I'm done. This is not like some other rules where you have to re-up your compliance every year or anything. You just set it and forget it. I'll never have to do this again unless I make significant changes to my ownership structure or anything like that. So the way the rules are is that we have to be in compliance by the end of 2024. For you.

Dan Mayer:
For me. We can talk about this in a couple of minutes about what other, but just to clarify people, a certain pop segment of the population does have to be in compliance.

David Yood:
That's right.

David Yood:
Yeah. Because my company was created in 2021. Uh, I'm a, we're a three person partnership and because our company was created back then we have until the end of this year to be in compliance, which again, I did it in 10, 15 minutes, a couple months ago. I believe companies that are created this year and then companies moving forward have about one month to be in compliance if I'm not mistaken. But for the rest of us, they give us to the end of this year and then that's it. Like you can then then be done with it.

Melvin Varghese:
I mean, it's nice to hear you talk that it like it brought relief. Do you remember offhand, like what sort of information like, that they wanted was like your LLC name?

David Yood:
Like, yeah, stuff like that are our tax ID number who owns it. So the rules are that if you they want the information for ownership, And if you own 25% or greater of a share in the company, then you have to register. And so they just wanted my personal information so that they could find me if there was ever an issue with, if I were ever skimming money from foreign governments, which, you know, if you're a foreign government, reach out, let me know. I can use your money. I say with my lawyer on the call, but honestly, they just wanted that basic information of who I am and where they could find me. And that's about it. It was really not complicated. Yeah.

Melvin Varghese:
And you said the 25% of because you had a three person partnership, like each of the partners had, yeah, we have 33% ownership.

Dan Mayer:
So yeah, yeah. And there's a number of people who would apply to 25% ownership is one of the categories. The other thing I would say, though, kind of latch on what they were saying was, You know, it is when you first look at the rules and you look at the compliance, you're like, oh, my God, this is terrifying. I think the two points that Dave highlighted that are important are that while there are, you know, steep penalties and we can talk about the consequences of not reporting it in a little bit. But I think that there's sort of an asterisk on that, first of all. Second thing is for people to know is, guys and everyone listening, this is not hard to do if you are required to do it. And you're going to hear me say this repeatedly and Dave will tell you and you know I say this all the time. You know, if you're not sure what to do, then get help, right? Go to your accountant, go, you know, get, go to your lawyer and get done really quickly for you. It's not as scary as you think it might be.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. No, thank you for like, I think normalizing that and saying all that. Uh, we started to talk about this and Dan, maybe you can start this and Dave, feel free to like chime in. What does this filing process look like for. Like solo and group practices. So it sounds like for us with regard to this, like corporate transparency act, I wonder if we could just go a little deeper into it. Is it just the submission or it's a different, like depending on your LLC structure, all that kind of stuff.

Dan Mayer:
Right. So when we talk about reporting companies. Right? We're talking about LLCs for sure. We're talking about corporations and UNS Corp. and LLC. We're talking about you. The way I describe it is other entities that are otherwise required to file with the state, right, or the federal government. Right? Generally, like if I'm filing to create my identity with the state that I'm in, like Maryland, for example, most likely the act will apply to me and I will be required to apply. As Dave said, there's a process, there's a website. What I do like about what they've done with the defense head website is I think, now I'm a lawyer, I try to put myself in the shoes of an ordinary person. And doing that, to me, it seemed pretty self-explanatory. I think they do a pretty good job, step by step, walking through what they want. You know, so it's really just, okay, do this, upload this, give us this information, tell us this, click submit, right? When it comes to, you know, people who don't have registered, so let's say I'm a therapist and I've never registered my company, essentially you're what we in the IRS would call a solo or a proprietorship, right? So if you've never registered, you just are, you're just doing your thing. One way to know if that's you is, you know, if you don't have a LLC or a score for that, you don't, you know, from a legal perspective, you don't have liability protection.

David Yood:
Now that's a whole nother issue to look into.

Dan Mayer:
It would also mean saying you should have an entry register and likely then you may not need to actually file, right? Because the government's saying, well, you're not actually a registered entity that we care about, right?

You're just new.

Dan Mayer:
The IRS cares, but the IRS knows that you, John Doe, are filing with them and saying, I earned X amount of money, I have X amount of expenses, here's my taxes. There's nothing you're reporting on, like if I have an LLC where I'm filing an annual report every year. That's the government saying, okay, yeah, this applies to you. Does that make sense? Am I trying to explain this clearly as possible? Yeah, it does. My one caveat is, again, I'm gonna say this over and over again, if you're sitting here listening to this right now, I'm not really sure, no problem. Go on the website, read the information, see if that makes sense to you. If not, hopefully you have an accountant or a lawyer or no one you can contact, they can absolutely help guide you here to make sure to figure out whether you need to apply at all.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, Dave, is there anything that you would add with regard to that, like similar group practices?

David Yood:
No, they only care about ownership information. So if you have a group practice, and you're the sole owner, and you have 20 employees, they don't care about the 20 employees, they just want to know about you. So it only matters if it's a multiple owners or single owner.

Melvin Varghese:
Got it. And then I'm thinking like, you guys alluded to this earlier. So I know there's like this thing where a lot of times when clinicians first start in private practice, they don't have like an LLC or S Corp or anything, they kind of just start out. So it sounds like they're because they're technically not an entity, right? There may not be a responsibility disclosed, but it's probably just being cautious to go ahead and do that. Is that the way that I understood that?

Dan Mayer:
I don't know. No, I actually, well, I think the first part is correct, right? From what we can tell now, based on what's being documented in the law and what the procedures and policies are now, yes, you are a solo practice. You've never registered, right? So let's say I decide tomorrow I want to start my own therapy business. Great. I'm Dan Mayer therapist. I'm not, since I'm not saying I am, let's say I was, right? I'm now saying I'm here, I'm me, I'm doing business as Dan Mayer therapist. okay, you know, as far as the state, my state, Maryland is concerned, and the IRS is concerned, okay, when I file my taxes, they're gonna say, what did you earn this year? You know, any exemptions you're making? Great, here's what you owe. Right, and that's it. That's all, you know, it's simple as that. It's when you file with the state that you're in and say, no, I now want to add, I want to become an actual registered business. Now I'm an actual legal entity. that I'm now acting under, that those reporting partners kick in now, right? I'd like to be subject to change down the line, but as of now, that's our understanding is that if you're not, you're just you doing therapy, you're not likely gonna be needing to report. Again, and I know, I know I sound like I broke the record, but I'm a lawyer, I have to do this, just like I told you I have. You know, as they say, if you're not sure, talk to someone, verify the report, decide not to do it, okay?

Melvin Varghese:
This might be a really silly question, but like, if they're only really going for like registered entities, isn't there like a loophole of like, couldn't businesses technically like still would like do illegal behavior where they just don't register and they somehow do stuff under the like, I mean, isn't that a possibility? I don't know.

Dan Mayer:
You're talking about therapy practices?

Melvin Varghese:
I mean, generally, like not just therapy practices, right?

Dan Mayer:
So if you're a business and you don't register, so I believe the federal government has unlimited amount of resources and the ability to find you if they want to find you. And the IRS, and this goes into some of the constitutionality questions that I was going to talk about, the IRS knows exactly who you are. So having a social security number, they know who you are. And it's your reporting and said, well, well, I mean, X amount of money and during my business. If someone really wanted to, in my opinion, someone wants to say, you're out and I just want to figure out what we have a business that you can do for her to go do it. Right. Or they can even contact the state say, you know, we're doing an audit. We're investigating. You know, can you please tell me what business this person has? Oh, they do have an asking. Oh, you didn't register. Okay. Well. You gotcha. Right. They have the ability and the resources to look towards that to figure out what's going on. I think there's a broader question, which I've gotten from people as well. That's the thing. Why do I need to report at all. But I think it's because Again, all of that's extra steps that they have to jump through to get to figure out who you are and what you're doing. This is kind of designed, in my opinion, this is my own personal opinion. This is not a fabric label opinion, is that they're creating a shortcut and saying, no, we're creating a database where we have this like access.

David Yood:
It's like they're streamlining the process. They can still do it the old fashioned way, but this just makes it much simpler. Okay. That's what I would say. So, so my advice, don't do that.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. Right. It's just not worth the risk.

Dan Mayer:
I would say everyone probably, I'm going to go on a limb here and say, everyone wants to do the right thing. And it's trying to, you know, run things the right way. So don't go down that road.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, absolutely. We started talking about this, like alluding to it. So there is some controversy around this Corporate Transparency Act, whether it's constitutional or not constitutional. I was wondering if you guys could speak to that part of it.

Dan Mayer:
How high is soapbox? If I can get on it and start preaching?

Melvin Varghese:
Low, medium soapbox.

Dan Mayer:
No, I'm kidding. My personal opinion is this. But, you know, I look at this and say, I've had this discussion with a lawyer, but I've heard the arguments made by. like the Chamber of Congress and stuff, you know, I don't buy, personally, it's the argument that the federal government can't do this or shouldn't do this. The federal government regulates our taxes, they regulate our waterways, they have the power, and we agree by the fact that we're a united country, to regulate and enforce laws and regulations, right? Everything from pay taxes to you don't hunt without a license to, you know, here's how you, you know, what you can do in natural fisheries and not fisheries, We generally accept that they have the power to regulate things like that. In my opinion, then, personally, from a legal perspective, they do have the power. Congress approved and passed this act to say, this is what we want to happen. The president signed it. It's law. The question of constitutionality for my question is really more an esoteric one in that what I would say is the flip side. It hasn't yet been proven not to be constitutional, right? So until a court decides that it is unconstitutional, as of now, it is constitutional by the very fact that it hasn't been overturned, you know. So in the way I look at it is, The law is the law. The government's saying this is what we want. So until a court comes along and says it's not, you know, I just don't buy into the argument. So I was thinking, oh, we can't do this. Well, they are doing it.

David Yood:
Yeah, I suppose it's at some point a court could decide that it is unconstitutional because the way the courts work these days in the United States. anything can happen. It's Calvin ball out there when you can pick your judge and pick the Supreme Court and all that. So it's a possibility that that could happen. But until that point, it's moot for us. Somebody has to challenge it. And then the court has to choose that.

Dan Mayer:
I'm not a constitutional scholar, right? There are those who are far more intelligent and educated on me on this particular point of the Constitution than I am. But what I would just say, also say is that from my understanding and knowledge as an attorney, I look at this law and I personally can't see anything that seems to me to stand out as saying Congress oversteps here. Congress makes a decision. We want the treasurer to have these powers. When you create this database, if I'm doing my own analysis here, we have other databases like sex offender registry. We have all sorts of different ways of categorizing, collecting information already. This is just one more. Now there may be constitutional scholars out there who may hear this and say, I absolutely disagree with you and that's fine. But from my perspective, that's what I would do.

Melvin Varghese:
That's great. The last question I have for you, and this is for you, Dave, beyond just submitting the stuff that you needed to and that you alluded to, is there any other kind of things that have, is there any like ripple effects or anything that you're thinking about like for your private practice?

David Yood: None whatsoever.
It's such a simple, here's the information, submit it. I never have to think about this again. So I'm not concerned about any ripple effects unless one of my partners or me decides to start doing very illegal behavior, then this makes it easier for the feds to come after us. And honestly, good. They should come after us if we're doing that kind of illegal behavior.

David Yood:
I don't want that kind of thing happening here.

David Yood:
And by illegal behavior, I mean specifically the things that this act is trying to protect the people against, you know, money laundering primarily. So it makes it maybe a little bit harder to do very illegal things. And I am okay with that. I do not foresee that being a problem. So no, I don't see any ripple effects, anything like that. When we were all trying to figure out the No Surprises Act and good faith estimates, the answer would have been yes, absolutely. It's a lot more paperwork and a lot more things to track because that's a recurring thing, needing to make sure in compliance with that is an ongoing process. But this one, set it and forget it.

Dan Mayer:
So I'm good. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned it. That's what I was going to latch on to that and say the same thing. I actually think the No Surprises Act created much more paperwork and burdened some tasks or practices on a seemingly recurring basis. This, as Dave said, is literally, you said it, you get it done. Now, if I may, there's two things I want to just tackle, which we kind of touched on, but I think it's important because those listening may have these questions, I get these questions. And we touched on them briefly, so I want to expand on it quickly for those listening. When we talk about, yeah, if you set it, you know, file this and forget about it, that's fine, but there's an asterisk on there, okay? And I want to give everyone listening just some information. You can find this online too, obviously. But what are the rules here? You know, if, as David alluded to, if you are a company, you're a great LLC or a company, any times in January 2024 and December 30th, you have 90 days to file. So if you file, create your LLC in February and you still haven't filed this, you're overdue, get it in as quickly as you can. If you've created your, before 2014, yes, you do have until the end of the year, okay? Starting next year, if you create an LLC, that's going to work, that is going to drop down to 30 days, okay? Another thing that they alluded to is that if you do create your company, you file this, but then you make changes to it, you know, substantial changes to ownership, things like that, very likely there's going to have to be a follow-up piece where you're going to have to update or amend the file you have. Again, that's not overly burdensome. It's go in, update it, submit, you're done.

David Yood:
Yeah, we should say what is burdensome are the consequences if you do not do this.

Dan Mayer:
And that's what I want to talk about next because I also get that question. What I would simply say is, if you look at it from, here's what the consequences are, it's terrifying. And I said earlier, there's an asterisk on this, and I wanted to mention that asterisk now. So everyone just sort of knows, the consequences are, you can have civil penalties up to $500 a day for noncompliance. There can be criminal penalties, including up to two years in jail and a fine of $10 a month. That's scary. But the reality is, for all those listening and believing, and most Americans who own businesses, you're not willfully, likely willfully not trying to file this, not trying to do the right thing. Melvin, you asked about that earlier. If I'm a company trying not to do this intentionally, they've essentially said, we will, that's called willful, we are going to comply and we are going to eventually come back to you. The question is, what happens if it's not willful? How does that work? And that's still kind of up in the air. It's not really sure, like, really clear to find what they're defining as willful or intentional or unintentional. So again, my advice here is, if you're listening to this, And you're like, well, I haven't done that. My advice to you is either go on onto the website. You can literally type in FinCEN beneficial reporting, and it'll start bringing up all the websites you need. Go on there, walk yourself through it, see if you can understand it and if it applies to you. If you're not sure still, talk to your financial person, your accountant, your lawyer, and get this just figured out. As Dave said, it's really quick. Once you kind of figure out whether you need to do it or not, you file it and you're done. You don't have to think twice about it.

David Yood:
Yeah, the likelihood that the federal government is going to come after you for being negligent and fine you $500 a day seems low and cumbersome, but they do have the enumerated powers to do so, so best to just knock it out. once you're done with listening to this episode, take care of it, and then you don't ever have to worry about any of that.

Dan Mayer:
There's something that a Medicaid attorney was told, and I often think about this, and I often think about it in the larger context of practice for practitioners in general. You know, we were talking about Medicaid and, you know, what happens when a practitioner does something that violates Medicaid. And I remember her saying, look, you know, at the end of the day, Medicaid, for example, is not trying to hunt you down, right? You know, we go after someone because they're a bad actor. There's a reason. We're really trying to feel like they've done something egregious from a public policy perspective or a financial perspective. They need to be dealt with, right? But the average person, like, if you make a mistake, we're not necessarily, like, going to, like, bring a hammer down. And I would argue that with how many businesses are in the United States and the resources that our government has, the average business owner, if you don't get the compliance, likely you're going to, my analysis would be, you likely probably will be able to get the compliance without too much happening. What they're really using this for is to scare people. They're like, this is serious. We're being dead serious about this. Do it. Kind of dissuade people to do it. And then also having the teeth available if they need to use it. Right. That's my analysis. They're not looking to screw over the modern populace in this country. They're not trying to make it unusually burdensome. You know, and I think that's part of the reason why they've said, you know, file it, you're done. Right. We don't want to make this the extra hard, but it's really important. So that's what we want.

Melvin Varghese:
Dan, Dave, thank you both for your time on such an important topic. I mean, I am literally going to go take care of this right after we're done.

David Yood:
Oh, good. We've done our job.

Melvin Varghese:
Yes. Where can we learn more? Well, tell us a little bit about the podcast where we can find it and then how we can touch base with you if we have questions or any of that.

David Yood:
Well, we are at protectingyourpractice.com and, you know, just type in protecting your practice to whatever podcast platform you have and you'll find us there. Also, Dan is at Mayor Law and I'm at Maryland OCD and Anxiety Therapy. That's my practice. And you can come find us there. Go on protecting your practice. Leave us some feedback. Shoot us a message. Let us know you heard us. It's always nice to hear those things. And we'd love to hear from you all.

David Yood:
And yeah, our podcast will listen.

Dan Mayer:
And I would say to, you know, latch on what Dave said, you know, we, we are working on becoming better at Epson. And I think Dave and I have a bunch of different ideas and topics we want to cover, and that's forthcoming. So definitely feel free to check us out.

David Yood:
You know, if you have a topic or something or interest that's like, you know, really have, feel strongly about, maybe we'll look at it and do an episode on it. So, but thank you so much Melvin for having us on. No, thank you for it. Really appreciate it.

Melvin Varghese:
No, you're so welcome. And have a great rest of your day. Thanks. Hey there, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dave and Dan, and especially if this is your first time hearing about the Corporate Transparency Act, and if you're a therapist in private practice here in the U.S. I hope that today's session is helpful for you. Big action step on this, go to fincen.gov, so that's F-I-N-C-E-N dot gov, and I'm looking at the website right now, there's literally a section that says how do I file, and you can literally get this done in 10 minutes. I don't mess with this kind of stuff, so I'm going to be doing this as soon as I finish recording. And, I don't know, I mean, this is, on one hand, like, yes, there's like questions around constitutionality and all of these things, but I'm, at least for me, what I'm trying to think about is like, okay, this seems like something that can really help reduce things like shell corporations doing illicit stuff and money laundering and all of that kind of stuff. Definitely again, go over to FinCEN.gov and take care of this before the end of 2024. Have a great rest of your day and I will see you for the next session, which will be the final session for 2024.

Narrator:
Thanks for listening to the Selling the Couch podcast. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit www.sellingthecouch.com.

Melvin Varghese:
Before we continue with today's podcast session, just wanted to take a moment to thank the team over at Alma for supporting today's podcast session. So the best way to think about Alma is it's almost like a giant group practice, but because it is a big group practice, a significantly large group practice, they're able to negotiate higher reimbursement rates for you if you are a therapist in private practice that takes insurance. But the cool part I actually wanted to mention today is they actually have a very thriving and active community for professionals. So what does this look like? So one is they actually have a cross-referral network within almost so yeah you know therapists can refer clients to you that are good fit they also there's opportunities in places where therapists can share resources with each other and just find general support now they're Alma kind of takes things to the next level. So by being a member of Alma, you also get continuing education courses, workshops with industry experts, as well as peer support groups where clinicians can discuss their work in a very collaborative environment. You can learn more about Alma and sign up over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma. And if you go through that link, there's a special discount or a special bonus there for Selling the Couch listeners. Let's get right back to today's session. Hey there, I hope that you enjoyed today's session. Thank you again for taking the time to listen all the way through. If you are a therapist and you're specifically in a season where you're a seasoned therapist and you are wanting to move from clinical to online course income, We actually have a specific mastermind for therapists who are doing this. So this is basically a group of really kind and supportive therapists who are also wildly successful as business owners. We meet together to build and grow and scale our online courses. you can learn more about that mastermind over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash mastermind all one word sellingthecouch.com forward slash mastermind thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's session

00:00:00 – Mel's Intro

00:04:04 – Overview of the Corporate Transparency Act

00:08:03—How to think about this for your private practice

00:10:04—The information you need to share for compliance

00:12:25—The Filing Process

00:20:15—Is this act constitutional?

00:31:53 – Mel's Reflections