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Lots of people. There is a legal difference, of course, between "truly anonymous" and merely effectively so. I am including situations like the designated trus

by _jal 4y ago

Lots of people. There is a legal difference, of course, between "truly anonymous" and merely effectively so. I am including situations like the designated trustee knows who the owner is, and if subpoenaed, will disclose that the owner is an Isle of Man corporation with a Panama address. Here is discussion about it for Delaware corporations, but my understanding is South Dakota is currently the most popular US state in which to incorporate for, uh, privacy reasons. https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/delaware-bills-mere-window-dressing-will-nothing-curb-abuse-anonymous-companies/ https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/delaware-bills-mere-wi...

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> is a legal difference, of course, between "truly anonymous" and merely effectively so Which is an important difference when it comes to AML. We don't have anonymous corporations in America. Computers have made it easier to create and track daisy chains of entities, which makes tracing beneficial ownership difficult. But that's a far cry from it being U.S. policy to encourage that chaining. > the designated trustee knows who the owner is, and if subpoenaed, will disclose that the owner is an Isle of Man corporation with a Panama address They would also disclose the signer, likely a lawyer and/or registrar, along with the method and contents of communications with them. This is tedious. But one can only do one or two hops through these methods before running out of (a) people who will keep your secret without (b) losing your chain of ownership and with it control of the underlying asset.
- _jal 4y ago
  Yes, if there's sufficient time, money and will, you can usually, eventually, run someone down in a particular case. In practice, someone has to want to do that. There's an awful lot of opaque money flow in entities like this, and a lot of them fly under the radar.

by _jal 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> is a legal difference, of course, between "truly anonymous" and merely effectively so Which is an important difference when it comes to AML. We don't have anonymous corporations in America. Computers have made it easier to create and track daisy chains of entities, which makes tracing beneficial ownership difficult. But that's a far cry from it being U.S. policy to encourage that chaining. > the designated trustee knows who the owner is, and if subpoenaed, will disclose that the owner is an Isle of Man corporation with a Panama address They would also disclose the signer, likely a lawyer and/or registrar, along with the method and contents of communications with them. This is tedious. But one can only do one or two hops through these methods before running out of (a) people who will keep your secret without (b) losing your chain of ownership and with it control of the underlying asset.

_jal 4y ago
Yes, if there's sufficient time, money and will, you can usually, eventually, run someone down in a particular case. In practice, someone has to want to do that. There's an awful lot of opaque money flow in entities like this, and a lot of them fly under the radar.