“This bill would protect Americans’ privacy, cut red tape and save small businesses time and money. I’m proud to support it.”
WASHINGTON – Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) joined Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) bill to reform the Corporate Transparency Act by limiting its reporting requirements to foreign companies. The bill would protect American small business owners from burdensome federal reporting requirements and prevent the Treasury Department from collecting their sensitive personal information.
Under current law, many small business owners are required to report personal information to the Department of the Treasury, creating unnecessary paperwork and compliance costs.
“Ohio’s small businesses are the backbone of our economy and every time they are forced to comply with costly and unnecessary federal mandates, it slows job creation and puts sensitive information at risk. This bill would protect Americans’ privacy, cut red tape and save small businesses time and money. I’m proud to support it,” said Husted.
“When an obscure government policy requires small business owners to fork over personal data that even our government admits it doesn’t need, it’s time to change that policy. That’s why I’m leading the bill to permanently end this burdensome mandate and keep law-abiding Americans’ personal information out of a database it should never have been in,” said Kennedy.
Husted joins Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Jim Justice (R-W. Va.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.) Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Jim banks (R-Ind.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) in backing the bill.
Background:
- The Corporate Transparency Act, passed in 2021, required certain businesses to report Beneficial Ownership Information to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
- Beneficial Ownership Information includes personal details such as an owner’s full legal name, date of birth, address and identification number.
- The current definition of “beneficial owner” under the Corporate Transparency Act is broadly defined as someone who “directly” or “indirectly” exercises substantial control over a company.
- This vague definition exposes small businesses to substantial liability
- Small businesses and business groups raised concerns that these reporting requirements were burdensome, confusing and intrusive.
- In March 2025, FinCEN issued a rule limiting these reporting requirements to foreign reporting companies, pausing the collection of many Americans’ data.
The bill would make this March 2025 rule law and require FinCEN to delete Americans’ data already collected under the 2021 requirement.
By ending this data collection, the legislation would save taxpayers an average of $9 billion per year and save U.S. small businesses $6.7 billion over 10 years.
The full text of the bill is available here.