A clear victory for law-abiding small-business owners across the U.S.
Late Friday, March 1, Judge Liles Burke of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Alabama ruled in favor of NSBA’s lawsuit over the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).
Please click here to read the ruling.
NSBA has spent years fighting against the CTA and applauds the ruling which is a clear victory for law-abiding small-business owners across the U.S. who would have been forced to disclose their sensitive personal information to a government database. As the sole small-business organization behind the lawsuit, this ruling is a testament to NSBA’s commitment to America’s small-business owners.
“The CTA has from the very beginning been poor policy that unfairly targets America’s small businesses,” said Todd McCraken, President and CEO of NSBA. “This ruling justifies the concerns of millions of American businesses about how the CTA is not only a bureaucratic overreach, but a Constitutional infringement.”
NSBA and its member, Huntsville business owner Isaac Winkles, first brought the case before the District Court. While the case was being considered in court, the U.S. Treasury Department’s and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s implementation of the CTA has fallen short of expectations. Millions of small-business owners still do not know about the requirements of the CTA or the beneficial ownership information (BOI) database. The database, which began collecting BOI information earlier this year, is ripe for data security issues and confusion, confusion that could land law-abiding small business owners with hefty penalties or even jail time.
“As the court noted, the ultimate goals of the CTA, countering money laundering and terrorism financing are laudable,” said John Neiman, counsel for the NSBA and Mr. Winkles. “But as the court also noted, the Constitution sets limits on what Congress can do to achieve even if the most laudable of goals, and Congress violated those limits here. Congress can find a way to achieve these goals without exceeding the limits on its powers under the Constitution and without violating the constitutional rights of ordinary law-abiding American citizens.”
“The judge’s decision is an opportunity for Congress to go back to the drawing board and find a solution that not only protects Americans from bad actors here but overseas,” said McCraken. “The CTA simply will not accomplish the goal of stemming money-laundering – what it does is overstep the bounds of privacy, the law, and common sense at the expense of America’s small businesses.”
Please click here for more details on NSBA’s efforts on the CTA. #CTA:NotTheWay
