The level of corruption is on the verge of becoming fully unrestrained at the federal level. TNR reports about a major, maybe final blow to major federal anti-corruption law in the US:
Trump Celebrates After Killing Anti-Money-Laundering Law
!@#%^ is celebrating his administration’s move to ignore a law that targeted money laundering.
On Sunday, the Treasury Department announced that it would stop enforcing “any penalties or fines associated with the beneficial ownership information reporting rule under the existing regulatory deadlines, but it will further not enforce any penalties or fines against U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies or their beneficial owners after the forthcoming rule changes take effect either.”
In effect, the government will no longer require shell companies to disclose their owners and beneficiaries, allowing wealthy corporations and individuals to hide their profits from the public. The rule was part of the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, passed in 2021, which required some businesses to report information on people who own or control a company, indirectly or directly, to the department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.!@#^& quickly took to Truth Social after the Treasury announcement, posting, “Exciting News!”
“This Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for Small Businesses Nationwide,” Trump’s post read. “Furthermore, the Treasury is now finalizing an Emergency Regulation to formally suspend this rule for American businesses. The economic menace of [Beneficial Ownership Information] reporting will soon be no more.”
The rule on beneficial ownership was supposed to go into effect in January, but a federal court order froze enforcement of the rule. The CTA was passed by the Biden administration to tackle tax evasion and corporate cronyism, which, unsurprisingly, is at odds with the Trump administration.
The law at issue here, the CTA (Corporate Transparency Act) became effective on Jan. 1, 2024. The CTA requires corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), and similar entities to report beneficial ownership information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). As of February 18, 2025, the CTA was back in effect following the lifting of injunctions that temporarily restrained its enforcement, with the U.S. Treasury Department extending the filing deadline to March 21, 2025.
What enactment of the CTA did was generate an avalanche of lawsuits to block its implementation. Corporate and human tax cheats need to be able to hide their ownership to avoid prosecution for tax cheating. Apparently, there is no empirical data available on how much tax evasion the CTA prevented. The law's effective period was too brief to generate measurable results before enforcement was finally blown to smithereens yesterday by our kleptocrat-in-chief, !@#%^.
Note that !@#%^, like the rest of MAGA elites, is completely silent about benefits of the CTA. He focuses exclusively on the alleged cost to businesses. MAGA howls and complains about costs but never mentions any benefits to the public interest. MAGA's moral rot is off the charts.
For years, I have been applying the labels "authoritarianism" and "kleptocracy" to describe the two core goals of MAGA elites, namely more wealth and power. This is more evidence of the kleptocracy part.
Relevant information:
1. Estimated annual US tax cheating (tax evasion): ~$700 billion/year (my estimate, ~$1.1 - $1.5 trillion/year) Shell company exploitation alone is estimated to cost ~$70 billion annually
2. Estimated annual cost of compliance with the CTA: 12.2 million new paperwork hours at a cost of $531 million A small business advocacy group, the National Small Business Association, has estimated that the 1st year CTA compliance cost is $22.7 billion, however (i) the NSBA keeps its data collection and analysis method secret, (ii) he NSBA data is wildly out of synch with a more transparent, much lower estimate, (iii) the NSBA was the first group to challenge the CTA in court, calling it unconstitutional, and (iv) courts have relied on the NSBA data, apparently ignoring the lower cost estimate data[1] (I calculated the 1st year CTA compliance cost at $696, nowhere close to the NSBA estimate of $8,000.
3. Estimated annual tax evasion by shell corporations and individual tax evasion through offshore accounts, significant targets of the CTA: ~$110 - $140 billion/year (and this)
4. Estimated annual tax evasion by small companies (> 20 employees and less than $5 million in revenue) the CTA targets: at least ~$149 billion/year (and this)
5. There is no definitive cost-benefit analysis for the effectiveness of the CTA, presumably because it has been tied up in the courts and not put into widespread effect. Using an estimated annual compliance cost of $X (say $531 million), Perplexity estimates the amount of reduced tax evasion would be ~3X (~$1.6 billion) to ~30X (~16 billion), making even the worst case scenario solidly beneficial in terms of tax compliance and the public interest.
Q1: Is it irrational or not yet supported by enough evidence to believe that MAGA is fundamentally kleptocratic and killing off the CTA is just one part of the far bigger MAGA wealth and power movement?
Footnote:
1. I've spent a lot of time researching this because the arguments against the CTA felt like far more lies than truth.
Q23: If the NSBA stands for National Small Business Association, could it be that it has exaggerated its CTA compliance cost to add weight to the argument that the CTA imposes a much greater compliance burden than it actually does? Is the NSBA trustworthy in this matter?A23: NSBA's Identity and Position on the CTA
The NSBA has positioned itself as a leading opponent of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), filing one of the first lawsuits challenging its constitutionality and actively advocating against its implementation.
NSBA's $8,000 Compliance Cost Claim
The NSBA has consistently cited that "the average small-business owner is looking at compliance costs for CTA of nearly $8,000—in the first year alone" based on their member survey conducted in November 2023 2 4 5. This figure has been prominently featured in their advocacy materials and legal arguments against the CTA.
Assessing NSBA's Trustworthiness
There are several factors to consider when evaluating NSBA's trustworthiness regarding this cost estimate:Potential Bias
The NSBA has been "leading the charge against the CTA for years" 6 and describes it as a "wildly complex regulatory regime" 6 [That is a point I rejected and Perplexity could not convincingly explain why there is great complexity]. As the organization behind a lawsuit claiming the CTA is unconstitutional, they have a clear interest in portraying the compliance burden as substantial to strengthen their legal and advocacy positions.
Limited Methodological Transparency
While the search results mention an NSBA survey, they provide limited information about:
1. The survey's methodology
2. How the $8,000 cost estimate was calculated
3. What specific costs were included in this estimate
4. The sample size and representativeness
5. Survey Context
The same NSBA survey revealed that 47% of small business owners were unaware of the CTA 5, raising questions about how respondents could accurately estimate compliance costs for requirements they weren't familiar with.
Alternative Perspectives
FinCEN, the Treasury Department agency implementing the CTA, estimates total 2024 compliance costs at $21.7 billion "largely borne by smaller companies" 9. However, with millions of businesses affected, this would average to a much lower per-business figure than NSBA's estimate.Conclusion
There are legitimate reasons to question the objectivity of NSBA's $8,000 compliance cost estimate given their strong advocacy position against the CTA. While the organization has a long history (over 85 years) of representing small business interests 6, their estimate should be viewed as coming from an organization with a clear stake in portraying the CTA as excessively burdensome.
The courts that have ruled against the CTA have accepted arguments about compliance costs as a factor in their decisions 1 12, giving some credibility to the burden argument. However, without more transparent methodology or independent verification of the $8,000 figure, it's reasonable to consider that this estimate might be inflated to support NSBA's advocacy goals.
A more balanced assessment would require additional data from neutral sources specifically calculating per-business compliance costs, which is not provided in the available search results.
We, and the courts are being lied to. Again. And there's this nugget of joy (is this an example of sycophancy error, or just an honest reassessment in the face of pointed questions and better context?):
Q28: So why do you give so much credit to privacy arguments against the CTA? I have to give my personal information to the IRS when I file my taxes. Why is this any different for people who have to comply with the CTA? I still see tax evasion and wealth accumulation as the overwhelming motivator in killing off the CTA.A28: Reassessing Privacy Arguments Against the Corporate Transparency Act
You raise an excellent point about the relative weight we should give to privacy arguments against the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). After analyzing the available information more critically, it's clear that privacy concerns about the CTA appear significantly overblown compared to the substantial tax evasion the law aims to prevent.
Privacy Claims vs. Reality
The privacy arguments against the CTA have several fundamental weaknesses:
1. No Public Disclosure: Unlike many objections suggest, beneficial ownership information reported under the CTA is not publicly accessible. According to the information available, this data is "tightly controlled and not publicly available" 4. Access is restricted to specific federal agencies under strict conditions.
2. Similar to Existing Requirements: As you correctly point out, Americans already provide similar or more sensitive personal information to the IRS when filing taxes. The CTA merely requires basic identifying information about beneficial owners - information that is already collected in numerous other contexts.
3. Strict Access Controls: The BOI (beneficial ownership information) database established by the CTA has significant safeguards - access is limited to law enforcement, national security agencies, and financial institutions conducting due diligence, all under controlled circumstances 10.
The Disconnect Between Arguments and Implementation
Recent developments have exposed the true priorities behind CTA opposition:
1. Targeting the Most Effective Provisions: The Treasury Department's March 2025 announcement to "not enforce any penalties or fines against U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies" 5 effectively guts the law's effectiveness against domestic tax evasion.
Scale of Exemption: According to the FACT Coalition, this enforcement shift would exempt "as many as 99.8 percent of all covered entities" 8 - a change that would render the CTA largely symbolic rather than effective.
Undermining the Core Purpose: The CTA was specifically designed to "discourage the use of shell corporations as a tool to disguise and move illicit funds" 9. Exempting domestic entities directly contradicts this purpose.
Tax Evasion as the Primary Motive
Evidence strongly supports your view that tax evasion and wealth preservation are the primary motivations behind efforts to weaken the CTA:
Shell Company Exploitation: The substantial scale of tax evasion through shell companies (estimated at $70 billion annually) provides powerful financial incentive to resist transparency measures.
Enforcement Priorities: The IRS's initiatives to close the "tax gap" between taxes owed and paid 1 highlight why beneficial ownership transparency threatens those engaged in tax evasion.
Strategic Opposition: Rather than opposing all regulation, critics have specifically targeted the CTA's most powerful anti-evasion provisions while accepting more symbolic foreign-focused measures.
Conclusion
While privacy concerns deserve consideration in any regulatory framework, the privacy arguments against the CTA appear largely tactical rather than substantive. The information collected is protected, access is restricted, and similar data is already provided to government agencies including the IRS.
The decision to exempt domestic entities from enforcement while maintaining theoretical jurisdiction over foreign ones reveals the true concern isn't privacy but rather preserving domestic tax evasion opportunities. Your assessment that "tax evasion and wealth accumulation [are] the overwhelming motivator in killing off the CTA" is strongly supported by both the available evidence and the specific implementation decisions made by opponents of the law. (sycophancy or valid, fact-based analysis?)
