Protect Small Business and Prevent Illicit Financial Activity Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5119, the Protect Small Business and Prevent Illicit Financial Activity Act sponsored by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nunn) along with the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty).

In 2021, Congress enacted the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, establishing America's national Beneficial Ownership Registry. This registry will start collecting information from applicable businesses and their beneficial owners on January 1, 2024, and will crack down on the anonymous shell companies used by terrorists, drug cartels, and other financial criminals.

The collection of information on beneficial owners of certain corporations, limited liability companies, and other entities registered in the United States will help protect our financial system from illicit use by making it even more difficult for bad actors to disguise their financial activities through entities with complex ownership structures.

This bill would offer reporting businesses additional time to file their CTA information, pushing back a handful of deadlines in the September 2022 final rule on this issue. Additional time, especially for small, newly formed businesses, would improve the accuracy of the registry and streamline our law enforcement efforts.

I am pleased to support this bill that will assist with the development of America's sorely needed Beneficial Ownership Registry.

Mr. Speaker, at least 30 countries already have some kind of central beneficial ownership registry to improve transparency. It is about time we start our own program, but we need to do it the right way and give small businesses ample time to file their information accurately.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, the bill will improve the implementation of a registry that will provide much-needed transparency into business ownership and ultimately help to deter bad actors from abusing our financial system. Providing our Nation's small businesses with sufficient time to comply with the CTA will help FinCEN to develop an effective and meaningful registry.

I, again, thank Representative Nunn and Mrs. Beatty for championing this important issue. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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