US Senator Mike Rounds and dozens of congressional Republican colleagues are urging a department that investigates financial crimes to delay implementing a reporting requirement for small businesses.
The law went into effect January first.
The new law requires corporations, LLC’s and small businesses to report information about who ultimately owns or controls the company. Businesses have a year to file that information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
The US Department of Treasury said the new reporting requirements will strengthen the integrity of the US financial system by making it harder for illicit actors to use shell companies to launder money or hide assets.
In a December letter, Senator Rounds and other Republicans
want FinCEN to delay implementation by a year to allow the organization time to educate stakeholders about their new obligations.
Rounds said he’s supportive of the concept behind the law, but that much of the information is already found through secretary of state’s offices across the country.
“We’d much rather have them make it as simple as possible, not add duplicative reporting into the process and so forth,” Rounds said. “But the concept of actually being able to identify who the different entities benefit, who the beneficial owners are, that is a good thing and we’re supportive of that.”
The law is part of the Corporate Transparency Act, which supporters say is the biggest reform to financial transparency laws since 2001, following the September 11 attacks.
“This is a pretty big deal," said Gary Kalman, executive director for Transparency International US.
He says bad actors use the US financial system to launder money—often through anonymous shell companies.
“This law, for the first time, will require all companies in the United States to say who owns them and who’s really the beneficiary of that entity," Kalman said. "That’s a huge sea change. That’s what we hope comes out of this.”
Kalman believes an extension is unnecessary. He said the law requires four pieces of information—name, address, date of birth and driver's license number.
The law does not require trusts to disclose a beneficial owner. Trusts are a legal contract between two entities managed by a third party.
