Senator Marshall Introduces Bill to Free Small Businesses from Intrusive Reporting

Washington - U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) in introducing a bill to reform the Corporate Transparency Act by narrowing its scope to foreign businesses, preventing the Treasury Department from collecting U.S. small business owners' personal information, and saving small businesses billions of dollars.

Specifically, the legislation will narrow enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act to foreign companies, stop the collection of Americans' data, and require the government to delete any personal data it has already collected from Americans. As a result, the legislation will save taxpayers an average of $9 billion per year and U.S. small businesses $6.7 billion over 10 years.

"I've heard loud and clear from Kansas small business owners that the Corporate Transparency Act's reporting requirements are too costly and too burdensome. Since the CTA took effect, it became clear that requiring American small business owners to register sensitive personal information with a federal database was not going to work," said Senator Marshall. "I'm glad to join Senator Kennedy's bill, which will save American small businesses billions of dollars. I'll push hard to get it across the finish line so that American businesses can have the certainty of knowing it won't be rearing its ugly head again."

"When an obscure government policy requires small business owners to fork over personal data that even our government admits it doesn't need, it's time to change that policy. That's why I'm leading the bill to permanently end this burdensome mandate and keep law-abiding Americans' personal information out of a database it should never have been in," said Senator Kennedy.

Background:

• Under 2021's Corporate Transparency Act, the federal government began mandating the collection of certain individuals' Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI), including small business owners' full legal names, dates of birth, addresses, and unique identifying numbers.
• The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) ultimately found these reporting requirements to be overly onerous and intrusive for small businesses.
• By March 2025, FinCEN issued a rule narrowing the scope of the data collection to foreign reporting companies, pausing the collection of many Americans' data.

See the full bill text here.

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