4 ms·

I'm not very familiar with shell companies, so I'm curious – why isn't this just a matter of privacy for those involved? I'm generally pretty understanding of p

by mkmk 3y ago

I'm not very familiar with shell companies, so I'm curious – why isn't this just a matter of privacy for those involved? I'm generally pretty understanding of pro-privacy-oriented behavior.

arrosenberg 3y ago
Oligarchs using transnational legal arbitrage to avoid paying taxes isn't a matter of privacy.
- tensor 3y ago
  Nor is it due to the existence of shell companies. Rather it's due to poor enforcement and loopholes in tax law. You also don't need to make any of the information public to enforce it anymore than it's required to make your personal earning information public to enforce you paying taxes.
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    It's hard to take that position seriously. The people using the loopholes are the ones that pushed to put them in the law and degraded enforcement budgets. One hand washes the other and it takes place in the dark. Let's put a little sunshine on it and see what happens. We might find some very interesting networks exist...
itopaloglu83 3y ago
I don’t know any other case where someone can own an entity like a house, car, estate, etc. where they get to hide who benefits from it.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  You can hide ownership in real estate using land trusts in states that support them. You can fund an LLC with a vehicle to hide ownership of the vehicle by VIN or plate search. In both cases, startup costs are a few hundred dollars, and ~$100-200/year upkeep per asset. Trusts in general are simply good estate planning compared to probate costs, at least on the topic of real estate holdings and titling.
  - mcguire 3y ago
    Those are essentially shell companies.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - ensignavenger 3y ago
    New Mexico has fairly decent LLC privacy and you don't have to pay an annual fee to upkeep your LLC at all. Just need to have a registered agent, which can be had for under 100/year.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Appreciate the info!
  - itopaloglu83 3y ago
    Could you elaborate on reasons to do so? Using LLC to limit liability makes sense, but I’m not familiar with hiding identity behind a corporation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Privacy. My use case is obfuscating my life from data brokers. Law enforcement and the tax folks still know where to find me.
      - itopaloglu83 3y ago
        Privacy makes sense. Thank you.
micromacrofoot 3y ago
because it's a lot easier to have privacy when you're rich the default for normal people is for all of this data to be public unless you can either navigate bureaucracy (costs time and money) or pay someone to do it for you (costs money)
digging 3y ago
I'm quite big on privacy rights for indibviduals but I also feel that when corporate wealth (thus, influence on culture and politics) reaches a certain scale, radical levels of transparency become very important for the health of our society. For an extreme example, the public deserved (and still does) to know who were the individuals at Shell devising a decades-long misinformation campaign about climate change -- and that the bullshit they were hearing about climate change being fake was driven by nothing but greed. To address inevitable replies: No, I don't know exactly where the line is (or lines are - it should probably be a tiered system), and I recognize defining those lines is itself a position of immense power. Those are solvable problems though and don't make the idea bad. (It could still be a bad idea, but for other reasons.)
truckerbill 3y ago
It's about the usage. No single dogma ever makes sense without context. These are abused by many to hide taxable wealth. It's in the public interest to understand what very powerful people are doing , because the public are usually getting the short end of the stick- this should override any ideology regarding 'privacy', 'freedom' and other fuzzy words (not that some interpretation of these things isn't also important)
ensignavenger 3y ago
It is very much a matter of privacy for most folks doing it. And you don't have to particularly be rich to benefit from it.
Veserv 3y ago
Not all are bad, but they are frequently abused to not only protect privacy, but to protect against legitimate legal need. It is like hiring a contractor on your house who gives you a false name so they can skip out of town when you figure out they cheated you. There is no legitimate purpose for that degree of privacy. They wanted privacy for the express purpose of providing you no legal recourse. Pseudonymity is perfectly valid, but there needs to be efficient, effective, and crystal clear means to pierce it and find the actual humans making the decisions with intent when there is a legitimate and well-supported legal need.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  Can you cite any research on just how frequent you mean by "frequently". It certainly happens sometimes, but I have found no evidence that is is the norm.
  - Veserv 3y ago
    Why does that matter? I said that pseudonymity is perfectly fine, there just needs to be a straightforward and effective means of piercing it when there are legitimate legal purposes. Are you arguing that because it is not a majority of cases that they should be impervious even if there are legitimate legal purposes? There are enough high profile cases of shell corporations being used for unsavory and explicitly illegal behavior, to the extent that it is literally a meme, such as the crimes unveiled in the Panama Papers [1] that simple and robust mechanisms to prevent abuse are warranted even if abuse is uncommon. It is not like being able to pierce the privacy with a court order is even some new mechanism, you can already do that, it is just expensive, time-consuming, and difficult if they fight. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers
    - ensignavenger 3y ago
      The cost of providing such mechanisms and properly securing them against abuse have to be weighed against the benefit. In order to know the benefit, we need to know the size of the problem we are seeking to solve, and whether or not the proposed system would actually solve the problem. So yes, knowing the size of the problem matters a lot, and is a good first step to running a cost benefit analysis.

by mkmk 3y ago

I'm not very familiar with shell companies, so I'm curious – why isn't this just a matter of privacy for those involved? I'm generally pretty understanding of pro-privacy-oriented behavior.

arrosenberg 3y ago

Oligarchs using transnational legal arbitrage to avoid paying taxes isn't a matter of privacy.

tensor 3y ago
Nor is it due to the existence of shell companies. Rather it's due to poor enforcement and loopholes in tax law. You also don't need to make any of the information public to enforce it anymore than it's required to make your personal earning information public to enforce you paying taxes.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  It's hard to take that position seriously. The people using the loopholes are the ones that pushed to put them in the law and degraded enforcement budgets. One hand washes the other and it takes place in the dark. Let's put a little sunshine on it and see what happens. We might find some very interesting networks exist...

itopaloglu83 3y ago

I don’t know any other case where someone can own an entity like a house, car, estate, etc. where they get to hide who benefits from it.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
You can hide ownership in real estate using land trusts in states that support them. You can fund an LLC with a vehicle to hide ownership of the vehicle by VIN or plate search. In both cases, startup costs are a few hundred dollars, and ~$100-200/year upkeep per asset. Trusts in general are simply good estate planning compared to probate costs, at least on the topic of real estate holdings and titling.
- mcguire 3y ago
  Those are essentially shell companies.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  New Mexico has fairly decent LLC privacy and you don't have to pay an annual fee to upkeep your LLC at all. Just need to have a registered agent, which can be had for under 100/year.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Appreciate the info!
- itopaloglu83 3y ago
  Could you elaborate on reasons to do so? Using LLC to limit liability makes sense, but I’m not familiar with hiding identity behind a corporation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Privacy. My use case is obfuscating my life from data brokers. Law enforcement and the tax folks still know where to find me.
    - itopaloglu83 3y ago
      Privacy makes sense. Thank you.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

because it's a lot easier to have privacy when you're rich the default for normal people is for all of this data to be public unless you can either navigate bureaucracy (costs time and money) or pay someone to do it for you (costs money)

digging 3y ago

I'm quite big on privacy rights for indibviduals but I also feel that when corporate wealth (thus, influence on culture and politics) reaches a certain scale, radical levels of transparency become very important for the health of our society. For an extreme example, the public deserved (and still does) to know who were the individuals at Shell devising a decades-long misinformation campaign about climate change -- and that the bullshit they were hearing about climate change being fake was driven by nothing but greed. To address inevitable replies: No, I don't know exactly where the line is (or lines are - it should probably be a tiered system), and I recognize defining those lines is itself a position of immense power. Those are solvable problems though and don't make the idea bad. (It could still be a bad idea, but for other reasons.)

truckerbill 3y ago

It's about the usage. No single dogma ever makes sense without context. These are abused by many to hide taxable wealth. It's in the public interest to understand what very powerful people are doing , because the public are usually getting the short end of the stick- this should override any ideology regarding 'privacy', 'freedom' and other fuzzy words (not that some interpretation of these things isn't also important)

ensignavenger 3y ago

It is very much a matter of privacy for most folks doing it. And you don't have to particularly be rich to benefit from it.

Veserv 3y ago

Not all are bad, but they are frequently abused to not only protect privacy, but to protect against legitimate legal need. It is like hiring a contractor on your house who gives you a false name so they can skip out of town when you figure out they cheated you. There is no legitimate purpose for that degree of privacy. They wanted privacy for the express purpose of providing you no legal recourse. Pseudonymity is perfectly valid, but there needs to be efficient, effective, and crystal clear means to pierce it and find the actual humans making the decisions with intent when there is a legitimate and well-supported legal need.

ensignavenger 3y ago
Can you cite any research on just how frequent you mean by "frequently". It certainly happens sometimes, but I have found no evidence that is is the norm.
- Veserv 3y ago
  Why does that matter? I said that pseudonymity is perfectly fine, there just needs to be a straightforward and effective means of piercing it when there are legitimate legal purposes. Are you arguing that because it is not a majority of cases that they should be impervious even if there are legitimate legal purposes? There are enough high profile cases of shell corporations being used for unsavory and explicitly illegal behavior, to the extent that it is literally a meme, such as the crimes unveiled in the Panama Papers [1] that simple and robust mechanisms to prevent abuse are warranted even if abuse is uncommon. It is not like being able to pierce the privacy with a court order is even some new mechanism, you can already do that, it is just expensive, time-consuming, and difficult if they fight. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers
  - ensignavenger 3y ago
    The cost of providing such mechanisms and properly securing them against abuse have to be weighed against the benefit. In order to know the benefit, we need to know the size of the problem we are seeking to solve, and whether or not the proposed system would actually solve the problem. So yes, knowing the size of the problem matters a lot, and is a good first step to running a cost benefit analysis.