October 22 2019
After a decade foundering in obscurity, a bill looking to dent America’s status as the world’s biggest tax haven today passed a vote in the House by a 249 to 173 margin.
The bill would force the owners of US firms to disclose their identities to law enforcement (though not the public)—a strong deterrent to the money launderers, kleptocrats, and human traffickers who use secretive American shell companies to hide their cash and their identities, the bill’s backers say. The legislation would need to be passed in the Senate and signed by US president Donald Trump before becoming law.