NFIB v. Yellen Court Documents — Anonymousllc.co's 2026 reference. Covers the rule, the controlling statute or regulation, common questions, and how Anonymousllc.co handles it in practice. Primary-source citations linked throughout.
March 1, 2024 ruling by Judge Liles Burke. Held the Corporate Transparency Act facially unconstitutional as exceeding Congress's enumerated powers.
Open full text →On March 1, 2024, Judge Liles Burke of the Northern District of Alabama ruled the Corporate Transparency Act (31 USC § 5336) facially unconstitutional, holding that it exceeded Congress's enumerated powers under the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and Congress's taxing power. The ruling enjoined enforcement against the named plaintiffs (NSBA members) but did NOT extend nationwide.
The National Small Business Association (NSBA) and several individual plaintiffs sued the Treasury Department and FinCEN in November 2022, challenging the CTA on multiple constitutional grounds: enumerated-powers limits, First Amendment associational rights, Fourth Amendment privacy, Fifth Amendment due process and self-incrimination. The court reached the enumerated-powers question first and stopped there.
The court held that the CTA cannot be sustained under: (1) the Commerce Clause, because forming a corporation is not interstate commerce; (2) the Necessary and Proper Clause, because no specifically enumerated power justifies the regulation; (3) the taxing power, because the CTA is not a tax. The result: the CTA was unconstitutional on its face for the plaintiffs.
The injunction protected only the NSBA, its individual member plaintiff, and members of the NSBA as of March 1, 2024. It did NOT extend nationwide. Non-NSBA-member small businesses still had to comply pending appeal or further rulings.
Treasury and FinCEN appealed to the Eleventh Circuit. Oral argument occurred September 27, 2024. As of the March 2025 FinCEN Interim Final Rule, the appeal became less consequential — FinCEN administratively exempted domestic reporting companies, mooting much of the dispute for the affected class.
NFIB v. Yellen was the first major federal court ruling to strike down the CTA. It was followed by Texas Top Cop Shop v. Garland (E.D. Tex., Dec. 3, 2024) which issued a NATIONWIDE preliminary injunction. The combination of NFIB v. Yellen and Texas Top Cop Shop drove Treasury's decision to issue the March 2025 IFR exempting domestic reporting companies.
Government, regulator, and primary-source documents underpinning this page.
5-minute WhatsApp intake. 5-10 day turnaround.
Curated next reads, sibling explainers, and service paths from across the Anonymousllc.co library.