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Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

At first I thought, this makes no sense. Why would the Patriot Act care more about who's getting a library card than incorporating when the dirty money is obviously flowing through the entity?

And then I realized, the government gets all of the ID information they need about the corporation the moment the entity needs to open a bank account. ID not just for the single corporator, but information about all of the officers and directors, and increasingly, about shareholders and major investors as well.

From the government's perspective, it actually does make quite a bit more sense to gather more (and better) information through the banking system at a later time. It's low risk and the additional information is significantly more valuable.

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And then I realized, the government gets all of the ID information they need about the corporation the moment the entity needs to open a bank account.

Only if the corporation has a US bank account. A Cayman Islands bank account, not so much.

There's too much tolerance of anonymous corporations. In California, it is a criminal misdemeanor to ask for a credit card number on line before the actual name and address of the business has been given to the consumer. BPC § 17538. Useful to know if you have a dispute.

There is absolutely _not_ too much tolerance of anonymous corporations. If anything, there's not enough. The majority of them are likely used for lawful reasons. What an absurd, anti-privacy statement.

it's good to hear there are legitimate use cases. Care to share some examples? For me, and likely many others, the nefarious ones are the first that come to mind.

Assuming incorporation benefactor details would be kept private by the state, the only legit use-case I can think of is protection from politically motivated actions by public bodies.

Or is the fear that no list can truly be kept private, even by the state, and it would eventually be hacked or leaked, violating privacy?

Corporations are not entitled to privacy as a right.

> In California, it is a criminal misdemeanor to ask for a credit card number on line before the actual name and address of the business has been given to the consumer. BPC § 17538. Useful to know if you have a dispute.

Interesting, never seen anybody doing this..

California prosecutors sometimes charge companies under that when they've done something else that's harder to prove.

> Only if the corporation has a US bank account. A Cayman Islands bank account, not so much.

Yes but usually the purpose of the nefarious shell companies is to “anonymously” transfer the proceeds of illegal activities to the Cayman Islands. A drug lord or a terrorist can’t just wire the money from their own account.

It’s a moot point anyway. C-Corps aren’t the primary vehicle for laundering money anymore, trusts are. Usually a trust with one or more shell corporations or LLCs as trustee.

For the Cayman Islands, FACTA exists, so they probably in actuality get more data about the company.

Creating a corporation requires more than one form.

https://revenue.delaware.gov/business-tax-forms/doing-busine...

Edit: Step 2 is Obtain a Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) from the IRS. I started clicking through that process. The 2nd question the IRS application asked is are the co-founders married. Definitely more information required :-)

For the FBI, CIA, NSA and local police to investigate terrorism and other crimes (also to conduct parallel construction and CIA/NSA/FBI feed no-warrant intelligence gathering under "national security" and "terrorism" banners).

> Why would the Patriot Act care more about who's getting a library card than incorporating when the dirty money is obviously flowing through the entity?

Because the Patriot Act was about using terrorism as a pretext to shove through an authoritarian wishlist, much of which and previously been pushed unsuccessfully on other bases (rooting out Communism, the Drug War, etc.), rather than a rational focussed response to any real need.

    SELECT * FROM PRIVATE_PERSONS WHERE CHECKOUT_BOOK IS LIKE "%Anarchist Cookbook%"

Why not push all these private_persons into a Redis set upon checkout? Anything to save another trip the real workhorse!

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