S. 2956 would ensure that persons who form corporations in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations, in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations.
Detailed Summary
Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act - Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to: (1) establish uniform requirements for states relating to the disclosure of beneficial owners of corporations and limited liability companies formed in such states and the updating of such disclosures; (2) require states to maintain beneficial ownership disclosure information for five years after a corporation or limited liability company is terminated; (3) impose additional identification requirements for the beneficial owners of corporations or limited liability companies who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States; and (4) provide for additional civil and criminal penalties for individuals who provide false beneficial ownership information to a state. Defines "beneficial owner" as an individual who has a level of control over a business entity that enables such individual to control, manage, or direct such entity.
Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to publish a proposed and final rule to require persons involved in forming a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, trust, or other legal entity to establish anti-money laundering programs.
Requires the Comptroller General to study and report to Congress on state requirements for the disclosure of beneficial owners of partnerships, trusts, or other legal entities formed in such states.
Status of the Legislation
Latest Major Action: 5/1/2008: Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Points in Favor
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Points Against
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Visitor Comments
David Gendron
July 22, 2008, 5:00pm (report abuse)This bill is pointless. The problems it's trying to solve have already been solved by the USA PATRIOT Act and the BSA. Follow the money! The banks are now required to know the beneficial owner of the company accounts. A company can't do any financial harm without a bank account, so this is a moot point. It should be thrown out as reduntant.
concerned citizen
August 3, 2008, 10:16pm (report abuse)I tried to vote For on the question regarding Senators' Obama and Levin Bill on transparency of US Corporations and received an error, but then went back to re-vote but decided to see if voting Against would work, and guess what it did. This site is run by the same republicans that are trashing our country. Get it together......You mean to tell me that only 24% of our society is For curbing the misuse and straight cheating of true americans that follow the rules? I don't think thats even in the ballpark, although, like the election, its' probably about 60% For, 40% Against, because the lack of quality education in our society caused by the lack of tax dollars these corporations that hide steal from funding education through there loophole tactics sponsors about 39% of the 40% Against, and then the wealthy 1% that actually are against b/c they have 90% of america's wealth push this crap through.
concerned citizen
August 3, 2008, 10:24pm (report abuse)David Gendron: Unfortunately, banks and the regulators that try to follow the money are not able to peruse and go over every bank account. Because of this fact, you must curb the corporation rate, meaning stop corp a, from just moving to corp b with a new bank. Within 24 hours these corps can set up shop elsewhere, then costing the taxpayer billions in regulator fees to constantly peruse account after account, to as you would say, "Follow the money". Does it not make more sense to fight the cancer with a radiation method, at least until the cure has been determined. If you would like to wait for the cure, then you run a risk of dieing prematurely. Good Luck! I choose to do whatever it takes and give it the ol' college try.
David Gendron
October 9, 2008, 4:33pm (report abuse)concerned citizen: Nobody cares who the beneficial owners are unless they've done something wrong. Since 99.9% of them don't do anything wrong, why would you want to penalize them? The .1% that does do something wrong can be tracked through the banking system. Go after criminals, not taxpaying business people.
This bill would increase the cost to the State and everyone involved in the incorporation process, when the process and funding is already in place at the Banking level. This bill is absolutely redundant, and should be thrown out as too costly for being pointless.
Justin
November 17, 2008, 3:53pm (report abuse)I'm currently writing a journal article on this piece of legislation so this discussion is particularly interesting to me. My paper will argue that this bill should not be adopted. It will increase the costs for non-SEC governed LLCs and corps. This is especially true for smaller entities that cannot absorb the costs. It also would have a chilling effect on the economy since it discourages investment for fear of courts piercing to corporate veil to steep liabilities on shareholders. The legislation will not be effective anyway because the bad people can simply own the entity through a trust at a bank in a country with strong secrecy laws that prevent the bank from disclosing the beneficial owners of the trust.