The Trump administration has gutted a key anti-corruption tool meant to combat illicit finance through opaque shell companies. The rollback protects donors who use shell companies to conceal their identities or make illegal political contributions. Last Friday, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)—a Treasury Department office—issued an interim final rule scaling back the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), a 2021 law designed to force companies to report the people behind them, also known as their “beneficial owners,” to the government. Under the rollback, only foreign companies doing business in the U.S. will have to comply, while domestic companies will get a free pass.
Passed on a bipartisan basis as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the CTA was an attempt to pierce the veil of secrecy that surrounds shell companies such as LLCs that exist only on paper in order to obscure the flow of funds. The law took effect last year, forcing companies to report their owners’ personal information, but a federal court in Texas issued a nationwide injunction in December that halted its enforcement and compliance dates. Now, the Trump administration finished the job by effectively gutting it. The Treasury Department claims that the move was necessary to protect small businesses from having to comply with burdensome reporting requirements.
Without ownership data, law enforcement can’t spot if an unknown LLC dropping millions into a super PAC is legit or a straw donor masking banned contributors like foreign firms or government contractors.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he was suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called “a direct and blatant attack
A record 128,000 individuals with a net worth exceeding €1 million are projected to relocate this year, surpassing last year’s high of 120,000, as reported by UK-based consultancy Henley & Partners.
With Donald Trump heading back to the White House, Wall Street is anticipating the potential for lower taxes, deregulation and a U.S. president who is quick to sound off on everything from the stock
As reported in LondonLovesBisiness.com on wednesday 11 September, HMRC has added four more tax avoidance schemes to its list of known avoidance promoters. The update, issued on 5 September, should