EXCLUSIVE — Congressional privacy hawks are reintroducing a bill to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act, the latest effort from Republicans to reel in government overreach over U.S. citizens.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) reintroduced the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act on Wednesday. The bill, shared first with the Washington Examiner, would repeal a federal law that mandates certain small businesses file information about their “beneficial owners” with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
The goal of the law is to combat illicit activities like money laundering and fraud, but Republicans argue the widely unknown reporting requirements cause small businesses to pay hefty fines of up to $10,000 and, in some cases, jail time.
“The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) infringes American small business owners’ privacy rights by forcing them to disclose sensitive information to the government. The CTA is a disaster for small businesses and must be repealed immediately,” Davidson said.
The Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act has 67 co-sponsors, as well as the support of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and the National Federation of Independent Business.
The Corporate Transparency Act since it went was enacted in 2021 and went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Under the law, a “beneficial owner” is someone who directly or indirectly has ownership of at least 25% of the company’s shares or has major influence on the company’s decisions or operations.
The beneficial owner must provide their legal name and trademarks, as well as a current U.S. address for their home, main business site, or foreign operational location. Taxpayer identification numbers must be provided, as well.
Davidson and Tuberville, as well as Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), have been longtime advocates for repealing the Corporate Transparency Act.
Tuberville called the Corporate Transparency Act “big-government overreach at its worst.”
“The Biden Treasury Department is attempting to create a database on every American business owner,” the Alabama senator said in a statement. “Failure to register by the end of the year could land you in jail. This unprecedented intrusion into personal privacy must be stopped. You’d expect this sort of thing in Communist China but not in the United States of America.”
Republicans are pointing to a NFIB survey that found that 90% of respondents were “entirely unfamiliar” with the reporting process. The GOP also knocked FinCEN for failing to finalize two rules they deem important to small business privacy: the Access Rule and the Customer Due Diligence Rule.
The Access Rule would establish specific parameters for the database that holds beneficial owner information provided by the small businesses, while the Customer Due Diligence Rule would make sure that information does not result in a “duplicative reporting regime” for businesses.
The Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act comes as the CTA finds itself at the center of several legal challenges, most recently last year in December.
The Corporate Transparency Act is currently under a preliminary injunction after a Texas district court halted the enforcement of its beneficial ownership information requirements — including the Jan. 1, 2025, filing deadline. The Justice Department appealed the injunction, which led to the state’s appeals court issuing a temporary lifting on Dec. 23 last year.
As a result, FinCEN updated its guidance alerting reporting companies that they may voluntarily submit ownership information filings, but they will not be required to do so due to the pending injunction.
Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, it is likely the injunction will remain in place until March, when the Texas appeals court begins oral arguments.
“The Corporate Transparency Act is an unconstitutional power grab that targets more than 32 million small businesses,” Jeff Brabant, NFIB vice president of federal government relations, said in a statement. “The law mandates small businesses to register in a massive new federal database that state, federal, and international law enforcement can access without a subpoena. Thankfully, a nationwide injunction has temporarily halted this government overreach, but Congress must step up to provide long-term relief to small businesses.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Davidson has been at the forefront of privacy fights during his time in Congress, most recently in April of last year when he fought to include a provision in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would federal agencies to obtain a court order to purchase commercially owned data of U.S. citizens, such as their online activity and location information.
The amendment, the “Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act,” passed in mid-April, a win for privacy hawks during a contentious battle to reauthorize FISA. The legislation was championed by Judiciary Committee members and their allies as an amendment to Section 702 of FISA, but it failed to make it into the final reauthorization bill in a win for House Intelligence Committee members and national security allies.
This post was originally published on here
