‘Exciting News’: Trump Brags About Gutting Anti-Money Laundering Law – Rolling Stone
By
Nikki McCann Ramirez
The Trump administration has neutered a Treasury Department anti-money laundering rule requiring shell companies to disclose their owners and beneficiaries.
On Sunday, the Treasury announced that it would “not enforce any penalties or fines associated with the beneficial ownership information reporting rule under the existing regulatory deadlines, but it will further not enforce any penalties or fines against U.S. citizens or domestic reporting companies or their beneficial owners after the forthcoming rule changes take effect either.”
“Today’s action is part of President Trump’s bold agenda to unleash American prosperity by reining in burdensome regulations, in particular for small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy,” wrote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The rule was enacted as part of the Corporate Transparency Act, a law passed in 2021, and required some businesses to report information on their beneficial owners — a fancy way of referring to the people who either directly or indirectly own or control a company — to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
President Donald Trump celebrated the Treasury’s announcement in a Sunday Truth Social post. “Exciting news! The Treasury Department has announced that they are suspending all enforcement of the outrageous and invasive Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting requirement for U.S. Citizens,” he wrote. “This Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for Small Businesses Nationwide. Furthermore, the Treasury is now finalizing an Emergency Regulation to formally suspend this rule for American businesses. The economic menace of BOI reporting will soon be no more.”
The Corporate Transparency Act’s (CTA) enforcement was met with resistance by Republicans and groups like the American Bar Association since its inception. Critics argue that the reporting requirements created by the act place an undue burden on small businesses and American companies. While the CTA’s provisions on beneficial ownership information were set to go into effect in January, court orders challenging the law put a freeze on the enforcement of reporting requirements between December 2024 and February of this year.
The CTA was part of a larger push by the Biden administration to crack down on corporate cronyism and tax evasion — a multi-agency project that is now being gutted by the Trump administration.
Last month, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) orchestrated the firing of over 6,000 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents in the middle of tax season. The move contracted an expansion of the agency’s employee base under President Joe Biden aimed at targeting tax evasion by the nation’s wealthiest. DOGE has launched an all-out war against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency that has returned billions of dollars to taxpayers seized as penalties from abusive companies. We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
