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Why should any of it be confidential? When you ask our government to grant you special privileges, seems like we should know who's benefiting. Don't like it, do

Why should any of it be confidential? When you ask our government to grant you special privileges, seems like we should know who's benefiting. Don't like it, don't incorporate and don't enjoy the benefits.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> When you ask our government to grant you special privileges You ask your state to create a corporation. You ask your bank to give it a bank account. The U.S. requires the bank to make you told the U.S. who your beneficial owners are. This isn’t a story about a party granting privileges asking for something in return. And the parties granting those privileges, states and banks, don’t treat them as privileges. Being denied an LLC is extraordinary in every U.S. jurisdiction I know. Being denied a bank account is more common, but still often requires some reason. (Even if it isn’t communicated to the customer.) Note that my argument is narrow: your argument doesn’t hold. I agree with you in these data not deserving confidentiality. But not because incorporation is a privilege, but because there is a social good to making it public and social cost to letting people hide behind fictitious persons. (Where I disagree with the CTA is in making these data only available to law enforcement and the like. FinCEN’s BOI should be public.)
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  I think the ability to steer a potentially-immortal "legal entity" with capabilities that an individual citizen doesn't have, and that has zero existence outside what what we collectively will into existence via the government, is definitely a privilege. But yes, there's also a strong argument in favor of transparency here because it's a good, pro-social idea. My argument is more a counter to folks crying that their liberty's being stepped on or whatever. Government creates corporations, we can have it do what we want with/to them, some moral argument against our at least being able to know who the hell's benefiting from these creations of our government is somewhere in "not even wrong" territory.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > is definitely a privilege Voting is both a privilege and a right. Incorporating is not a privilege inasmuch as the government isn’t typically afforded discretion in granting it.
    - TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
      Governments aren’t without the ability to deny incorporation, and they routinely dissolve or suspend corporations passively by operation of law. For example failure to file an annual information report in my state for a number of consecutive years automatically results in a suspension of your business registration (and lawful authority to transact business).

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> When you ask our government to grant you special privileges You ask your state to create a corporation. You ask your bank to give it a bank account. The U.S. requires the bank to make you told the U.S. who your beneficial owners are. This isn’t a story about a party granting privileges asking for something in return. And the parties granting those privileges, states and banks, don’t treat them as privileges. Being denied an LLC is extraordinary in every U.S. jurisdiction I know. Being denied a bank account is more common, but still often requires some reason. (Even if it isn’t communicated to the customer.) Note that my argument is narrow: your argument doesn’t hold. I agree with you in these data not deserving confidentiality. But not because incorporation is a privilege, but because there is a social good to making it public and social cost to letting people hide behind fictitious persons. (Where I disagree with the CTA is in making these data only available to law enforcement and the like. FinCEN’s BOI should be public.)

alabastervlog 2y ago
I think the ability to steer a potentially-immortal "legal entity" with capabilities that an individual citizen doesn't have, and that has zero existence outside what what we collectively will into existence via the government, is definitely a privilege. But yes, there's also a strong argument in favor of transparency here because it's a good, pro-social idea. My argument is more a counter to folks crying that their liberty's being stepped on or whatever. Government creates corporations, we can have it do what we want with/to them, some moral argument against our at least being able to know who the hell's benefiting from these creations of our government is somewhere in "not even wrong" territory.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > is definitely a privilege Voting is both a privilege and a right. Incorporating is not a privilege inasmuch as the government isn’t typically afforded discretion in granting it.
  - TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
    Governments aren’t without the ability to deny incorporation, and they routinely dissolve or suspend corporations passively by operation of law. For example failure to file an annual information report in my state for a number of consecutive years automatically results in a suspension of your business registration (and lawful authority to transact business).