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Corporate Transparency Act of 2019

Floor Speech

Date: Oct. 22, 2019
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Finance and Banking Criminal Justice

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Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2513. As a member of the Committee on Financial Services, I have witnessed firsthand Representative Maloney's commitment to advancing this important piece of legislation, and I am so glad that we are discussing it on the floor today.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The need for sunlight is especially urgent today as it relates to the involvement of foreign bad actors in our economy and our political process. We have, all of us here, taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but regardless of whether you take that oath, I would submit to you that all patriotic Americans feel that obligation. I certainly do, and this bill is a furtherance of that oath.

Before I got here, I was a CEO of an LLC. In fact, I was the CEO of a lot of LLCs. I couldn't even tell you how many LLCs I was the CEO of. And the reason is, because like a lot of modern companies, we set up a corporate structure to have a nested set of LLCs that could isolate liabilities to be matched to different rounds of investors in our company.

Now, that is a great feature of LLCs, but as is so often the case, a strength is also a weakness. It is a weakness because if it allows us to hide investors who want to use our financial system in a nefarious way--like to launder money--they can take advantage of that strength.

And that is why this bill is so necessary. Because companies like mine already collect the data. Because FinCen data is already classified as FISMA high, which is the highest level of cybersecurity for government agencies. So the argument that data of all filers is not protected is simply not true. But ultimately, because sunlight is the best disinfectant, and because we are in a moment when too many powerful people are seeking to hide their sources of capital, putting the trust in our government and financial system at risk.

This is the right bill for business. It is the right bill for our financial system. And it is the right bill for our country.

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