[clamprecht]

I see no comments so far about the Corporate Transparency Act[1] and how it affects privacy with LLCs, etc. The US government will soon have a database of all (complying) beneficial owners. This database will eventually be hacked, leaked, shared with local law enforcement (further allowing it to be leaked).

How will the "rich people" maintain privacy/secrecy after the Corporate Transparency Act?

[1] https://www.uschamber.com/co/start/strategy/small-business-c...

[V__]

It seems really weird that you could do business with a company and not know who your actually doing business with. Also, it's kinda weird that there is no expectation of privacy except when you want to hide your assets.

[bdowling]

Often no member of the public does business with these corporations. E.g., a corporation set up by a celebrity to own a private home and keep her address out of public databases.

[smallmancontrov]

The opaqueness is transparently self-serving for those who own the stinkiest parts of our economy. We should demand better.

[balderdash]

Besides retail transactions the counterparties know who they’re doing business with, it’s just that the public is not privy to it.

[nradov]

As a customer or vendor why would I care who the beneficial owners are? Either the product works or it doesn't. Either they pay their bills or they don't. I don't want to waste time digging into their internal details.

[Gormo]

> The US government will soon have a database of all (complying) beneficial owners. This database will eventually be hacked, leaked, shared with local law enforcement (further allowing it to be leaked).

The BOI requirements of the CTA were recently ruled unconstitutional (as exceeding federal commerce-clause power and encroaching on powers reserved to states) in the first major test case before a federal court. [1]

Since it was ruled unconstitutional on reserved powers grounds, they didn't even reach the 4th amendment implications, but there may be further consideration as these cases make their way up the court heirarchy.

It's definitely not certain that this database is going anywhere.

> How will the "rich people" maintain privacy/secrecy after the Corporate Transparency Act?

The same way they do now. The CTA as formulated was only binding on non-publicly-traded companies with 20 or fewer employees. It also explicitly exempted companies whose primary business activity is financial services or asset holdings. This is why many regard it as an attack on small business disguised as an accountability measure for big business.

[1] https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/corporates/cta-un...

[altruios]

Name a company that is legal to run that SHOULD have it's owner's identity hidden...

Only those that dwell in darkness fear the light. Exposing who own these LLC's seems like a solid 'pro-truth' move for America.

[drewg123]

A company owned by an instagram influencer, youtube celebrity, only fans star, etc to sell their merch could easily lead to doxing the influencer. People in those industries take advantage of loopholes to hide LLC ownership specifically to avoid getting SWATted, having creeps hide outside their house and SA them, etc.

[cbsmith]

Classic, "if you've done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide".

The unscrupulous aspect might not be the company, but the audience. It shouldn't be that hard to imagine that owners of companies might be targeted for harassment, violence, etc., and might even be reluctant to invest in a company at all because of the problems that would come from being publicly listed in association with that company. One might argue that ownership comes with these consequences, but of course the impact might be broader, extending to friends and family members, who wouldn't necessarily have any ownership stake in the business. The Internet being the Internet, this tends to be a particular problem for women and minorities.

Then there's cases where the information could be harmful to the company, not the owner.

There's cases where they're just trying to avoid PR/political problems that can be perfectly defensible, but if you're having to defend them, you've already lost the PR/political battle. The Internet being the Internet, even if they purge all public political positions from their personal discourse, even historical political activity going back well before they ever founded a business could be a problem. I know business owners who make sure their business avoids engaging in anything that would put them on any side of a political or hot button issue, and they extend that to themselves because their name is attached to the business.

Simple example: I know one person who is involved with shelters for battered women. They're fine that everyone knows they're involved in it, but there are some businesses they've invested in where they're a silent partner specifically because their partners don't want the harassment/violence/ill will that can come with that.

[Gormo]

> Name a company that is legal to run that SHOULD have it's owner's identity hidden...

Every single one of them. If you don't want to do business with a firm that's evasive about its ownership, that's your prerogative, but forcing anyone engaged in business to have sensitive personal information about them recorded in a centralized database that will be a beacon for corruption and abuse is invasive, anti-social, and dangerous.

> Only those that dwell in darkness fear the light.

You are of course welcome to post your full name, home address, phone number, social security number, annual income itemized by source, credit score, and any other personal information you feel should be exposed to "light" right here in this thread.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Anyone touching anything in the vicinity of abortion services. Pornography LLC. Any number of anonymous chat platforms.

[axus]

If I ran a small service for an online game , I'd want to keep my identity secret. A small (but loud) number of gamers are toxic.

[sillysaurusx]

Sex toy product design. I happen to speak from personal experience; a family member was working at a conservative job that wouldn't view his side business favorably.

[toolz]

A company that specializes in helping people escape from horrible rulers would be an example. Not everything deserves to be public. There are always as many good reasons to hide as there are entities that need to be hidden from.

[Eji1700]

> Only those that dwell in darkness fear the light.

Yeah this has worked out so well historically.

The whole point of privacy laws is to allow for the idea of bad actors on the other side of the equation. I'm all for tightening up loopholes but off hand sayings like this are thrown around all the time and they're terrible logic that isn't at all backed up by evidence.

[janalsncm]

> This database will eventually be hacked, leaked, shared with local law enforcement

We could extend this argument to individual taxpayer info too. Have these things happened with taxpayer info, and does that mean the IRS shouldn’t get to know where you live?

[hughesjj]

> Have these things happened with taxpayer info

Actually, yes. Same with voter registration. Hell in WA state voter registration is public knowledge, along with whether you voted in any given election.

Try it if you want it, but read the terms of service. Lots of "if you use this for advertising it's a felony" for anyone looking to grift

https://www.sos.wa.gov/washington-voter-registration-databas...

[yieldcrv]

It was immediately challenged as soon as citizens could get standing this year

A judge ruled it unconstitutional - narrowly only for the organizations and their members that filed the case - and its currently being appealed by the US gov

its going to the 5th circuit though so rich people don't have to do anything, this regulation is DOA

its interesting what cases make headline news and whats relegated to law journals

[cj]

> its interesting what cases make headline news and whats relegated to law journals

It certainly made headlines to people its impacts. 2 of my law firms sent out alerts. (They send out alerts maybe 1-2 per year whenever a significant legal change is happening - I think the last alert was the Wayfair sales tax Supreme Court decision)

[DyslexicAtheist]

isn't the CTA US only? or would it have jurisdiction for a structure in UAE, Channel Islands, Dublin, or Luxembourg etc.

When it comes to actual personal wealth management (not corporate tax optimization) there is also Austria, Lichtenstein, Geneve, Monaco, etc which are all very livable for HNWI and their families.

[mamonster]

Lichtenstein isn't super livable, there is absolutely nothing to do in Vaduz.

Geneva and Monaco sure but one thing you have to realize about Geneva/Monaco is that for simply HNWI(UHNWI is 25 mil and up) Monaco is too expensive and Geneva has a horrible ratio of living costs to living quality(the expensive hotel quarter is right next to the "open drug/prostitution market at midnight on a Saturday" quarter). Geneva basically lost its lustre for 10-20 million networth foreigners after Cologny became saturated and overpriced over the last 10-15 years.

[Scoundreller]

Did you mean Andorra, not Austria?

[CodeWriter23]

> How will the "rich people" maintain privacy/secrecy after the Corporate Transparency Act?

By hiring ex-CIA Agents having experience with setting up shell corporations after said act.

[clamprecht]

Then I ask the same question you just sidestepped: how will the ex-CIA agents maintain privacy/secrecy after the Act?

[arminiusreturns]

Rich people get out of it because all their main hidey-holes (Banking, Insurance, etc) are exempted.

[nerdawson]

> This database will eventually be hacked, leaked, shared with local law enforcement (further allowing it to be leaked).

In the UK, all of that information is freely available to anyone via Companies House.

[Analemma_]

Companies should not be allowed to have secret ownership; I don't give a shit if this data is leaked. Corporations are a legal fiction, and so they have no right to or expectation of privacy, like there should be for persons with e.g. individual tax records.

The basic operation of markets depends on having as little information asymmetry as possible between opposite sides of a transaction, and part of that means knowing who you're doing business with to make informed decisions about the reputation of your counterparty.

[Gormo]

You are of course free to decide whether or not to do business with an organization based on how well you know/trust the ownership, and decline do do business that are evasive about their ownership at your own prerogative.

I'm not sure why ownership needs to be openly published in advance -- you can always query them confidentially through private correspondence -- or how having ownership compiled into a federal database that you don't have access to (unless you have corrupt influence over the relevant agency) will help you.

[kylecordes]

Large publicly traded companies sometimes already have pseudo-secret/anonymous ownership, with most of the shares held by a giant mutual funds etc.

[jollyllama]

Doesn't it only apply to new filings? Aren't all the old entities grandfathered in?

[PopAlongKid]

No. New entities have a 90-day window to file. Entities existing before 2024 must file no later by Jan 1 2025.

[erellsworth]

> How will the "rich people" maintain privacy/secrecy after the Corporate Transparency Act?

I mean, I think the whole point of the act is to stop "rich people" from maintaining privacy/secrecy in regards to the businesses they own. And that's a good thing.

[Gormo]

> I mean, I think the whole point of the act is to stop "rich people" from maintaining privacy/secrecy in regards to the businesses they own.

No, the act has little effect on "rich people". It applies only to non-public firms with 20 or fewer employees, and exempts most firms in the banking and finance industries.

It encumbers your local barbershop and the mom-and-pop restaurant on the corner, but the "rich people" get a pass.

> And that's a good thing.

It turns out that "rich people" have as much right to maintain the privacy of sensitive personal information as anyone else.

[klyrs]

You seem to be under the impression that the Act will have its intended effect and that OC was bemoaning that. I read this as, "with the Act in place, how will its intent be subverted by those in power"