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— The United States House of Representatives passed a bill tonight that would put America's small business owners' personally identifiable information at unprecedented risk and cost them billions of dollars and millions of hours in paperwork. The Corporate Transparency Act of 2019 (H.R. 2513), which passed the House 249-173 attempts to shift a responsibility from big banks to America's smallest businesses, saddling them with an additional 131.7 million hours of paperwork at a cost of $5.7 billion over the first 10 years.
"The House today not only shouldered millions of small business owners with a tremendous compliance burden but put their personally identifiable information at serious risk," said NFIB President & CEO Juanita D. Duggan. "The reporting requirements and devastating financial penalties will affect only small businesses, from farmers to franchisees to the mom-and-pop retail shop down the street. It is a big-government solution in search of a small-business problem, and we will not cease our efforts to stand up for small businesses against this serious threat."
The Corporate Transparency Act of 2019 is legislation that would require only those small corporations and limited liability companies with 20 or fewer employees to complete and submit annual paperwork which includes the personally identifiable information of each business owner to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network upon the creation of the business and periodically for the life of the business. Failure to comply is a federal crime with civil penalties up to $10,000 and criminal penalties of up to three years in prison.
While everyone is distracted by "impeachment", this is what the government is doing.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2513
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/proposed-corporate-transparency-act-2019-would-require-corporations-and-limited
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:12PM (56 children)
So, $570 million per year, or $0.0048 per US citizen per day.
I'd rather make the banks do the paperwork, but if they're not doing it properly and don't have access to the primary source material for disclosure anyway, a half penny a day is a small price to pay for opening up information that is supposed to expose corruption, fraud, etc. in EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS IN THE COUNTRY.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:40PM (34 children)
Or we could not do that and save a lot of money. Sorry, I don't buy that the present of illegal activities requires this sort of intrusive and pointless theater (after all, one has numerous ways to dodge such requirements should that become necessary to hide one's illegal activities). It shouldn't be the job of banks or small businesses to gather this sort of information and it shouldn't be the business of government to know this stuff either.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:16PM (24 children)
More likely argument could be made that the increased transparency may force certain hands into better compliance with the existing tax codes, costing even MORE money from small business' pockets, oh, the horror!
Meanwhile, what has that wall cost to-date? I mean, beyond the international embarrassment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:46PM (22 children)
Lefties are funny. If the other team gets to shoulder a burden that it sees as unnecessary and invasive, it's tough shit but they believe with their whole heart that getting an ID to vote is so fucking intrusive and difficult and expensive that only racists can manage it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:34PM (20 children)
Complying with the law is not a burden, it is actually a privilege - were it not for that law, your business would never exist in the first place.
Only in states where racists/classists make it so. I see no problems getting to vote in Florida.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @09:14PM (1 child)
Nobody anywhere sees it as a problem except the SJWs in their condescending derision for those they profess to be protecting.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:48AM
And the people who live in racist areas that effectively remove their right to vote. Maybe you should look into the issues before you claim the high ground in total ignorance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:51AM (17 children)
Another counterexample is going to court to defend yourself from frivolous charges or lawsuits. It's complying with the law, but in a way that is a burden.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:45PM (16 children)
The first point was "shouldering a burden" - the counterpoint was "if you were dodging existing legal taxes, starting to pay them is not shouldering a burden, it is participating in the system which protects your business and enables it to operate in the first place."
Frivolous lawsuits, vexatious litigation, and even blatant patent trolls are like pickpockets and embezzling executives, illegal, but a real part of the landscape that is an unfortunate burden upon those who they affect - though much less of a burden than the absence of a legal framework altogether.
I'll grant you another point: personal injury lawsuits do appear to be out of control - if by no other metric than the amount of advertising they generate. They seem to be able to render judgements for more or less whatever the defendant has in exchange for merely inconvenient injuries. There ought to be (new) laws restricting and normalizing what "pain and suffering" is really worth - the jury of our peers isn't handling this case well at all.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:42AM (15 children)
I can play that game too. Particularly, since most parties subject to this reporting requirement aren't dodging existing legal taxes and thus, don't meet the initial condition of your if-then assertion.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:31PM (14 children)
Most parties subject to this reporting requirement are shells, fictitious entities of little or no net productivity.
Cry for your local tyrant business owner if you must, meanwhile: the shell corporation which Ricky Derringer set up in Nevada to hide his ownership of the land next to mine is going to have to report his beneficial ownership in, well, nothing other than a shell, and the poor slob is going to have to fill out a form to do it, probably himself since he's not quite rolling in the Rock'n'Roll hoochie coo dough the way he used to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @12:20AM (13 children)
And that is relevant how? Shells can continue to deliver false information. Consequences will only happen long after the money disappears.
Meanwhile people like my brother, who merely maintains a corporation in case they resume contracting at a future time, have one more landmine to worry about, just because some thugs want greater control of small businesses.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 08 2019, @02:49AM (12 children)
Well - if, of those 30 million businesses, 25 million are shells, then let's all shed a tear for the shell managers shall we?
Not feeling much sympathy for your brother, either. Corporations that are on the shelf collecting dust should die. For that matter, the whole LLC structure needs to come into some alignment with the personal responsibility of direct ownership - just because you've paid off some lawyers to set up your straw man should not absolve you of any personal responsibility - maybe personal responsibility needs to tone down for individuals who have not set up a LLC, but the disparity just rewards the lawyers and the people who pay them off ahead of time, for insurance, or protection, or whatever you want to call it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @04:33AM (11 children)
The point here is that shell managers can easily handle this regulation. They're probably handling thousands at a time. It's easy for them to automate. The real problem as usual will the people with one corporation who aren't well versed in yet another land mine in the path.
Once again, I find it remarkable how much you and others defend yet more crap regulation. It doesn't solve a problem and it just creates problems.
Of course not. You're not affected. My brother is affected. There's overhead to creating a corporation and to the various IP associated with corporations. It's easier to pay the annual fee to renew the corporation's registration than attempt to recreate it at a future date.
Then it would not be an LLC structure. We've already established that the whole point of your approach is to prevent some hypothetical evasion of regulation and taxes. Creating duplicate structures that do the same things have no point except to create loopholes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 08 2019, @02:05PM (10 children)
Have I mentioned yet how little regard I hold for "fake people" in our legal system. Corporations, for the most part, should simply die. For someone who abhors complexity in regulation, you show a lot of love for these legal structures whose purpose is to dodge personal responsibility.
If you are responsible, YOU should be held responsible. LLCs don't make decisions on their own. If an LLC ends up "responsible" to someone, it should not simply be able to shrivel up and die to dodge that responsibility.
Now, $1M judgements for "pain and suffering" resulting from a slippery floor - those need to end, but LLCs aren't the answer.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @03:10PM (9 children)
So what? Your livelihood exists because of that minor legal fiction. Separating capital from legal responsibility is a huge innovation that helped make the modern world. We can't be legally responsible for everything in the world and it's foolish to try.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 08 2019, @04:35PM (8 children)
Actually, with tort reform and insurance, we could. Without tort reform, real insurance would be too expensive.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:16AM (7 children)
I hope the unicorns get that fixed soon.
And limiting liability means you don't need that reform and insurance in order to function. It's a superior approach.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 09 2019, @03:50AM (6 children)
It's a superior approach for those who have taken the time and paid the payola to get the protection, like your brother.
Rights should not have to be purchased, says the man who's about to pay a lawyer - twice - for power of attorney for an 18 year old child who cannot handle their own affairs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @05:33AM (5 children)
I notice you're advocating adding more time and cost to that payola for frivolous reasons. Not feeling it over here.
Rights aren't being purchased. You're paying someone competent so this process doesn't get fucked up. Now, having said that, maybe those regulations should be changed or curbed - though obtaining power of attorney for an adult shouldn't be an easy thing.
I find it interesting how you whine about paying for rights in a thread where you propose to increase the cost of paying for those rights. Not the first owned goal.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 09 2019, @01:42PM (4 children)
I'm advocating adding trivial amounts of time and cost to that payola - trivial for PERSONS using the corporate structure for your purported legitimate reasons - reasons which should be addressed in other fashion, but since this is the system we're stuck with for now, if you're running a real business, this is a trivial bit of overhead - less than regeneration of an invoice for a customer who changed address and never told you.
When the majority of uses of a legal structure are for abuse, those abusive uses need to be curbed - and if the "legitimate" users of the structure have to pay a bit extra - in this case 20 minutes of labor - boo hoo.
You haven't met this adult. $800 minimum legal fees seems a bit steep for something that 30 seconds to 20 minutes in front of a judge should cure.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:24PM (3 children)
No, you're not.
The abuses may need to be curbed, but not the legitimate uses.
What's steep about it? $800 seems pretty damn cheap for exposure to the legal system and what you're trying to do. And you did pay, right? Means you agree too even though you whine about it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 09 2019, @03:59PM (2 children)
Well, let's see, you're whining about 20 minutes of self-labor for your brother with zero cash out of pocket which is addressed at curbing fraud, funding of illegal activities, etc. All so your brother doesn't have to let his unused LLC structure lapse and re-create it if he ever has a legitimate need for it.
I'm whining about $800 to declare something that is self-evident after a 20 minute interview (actually, most people will have their mind made up in 30 seconds or less) - he is not and will not contest the decision (I'd be thrilled if he would, but no such luck), and has been in a fully supported environment in the public school systems since he was 3, specifically transferred from the "level 2 high support" program to a "level 1 self contained facility" because level 2 can't handle him.
Not yet, still seriously considering letting the legal system have him and they can work it out amongst themselves when the shit hits the fan. 18th birthday is in 60 days, still on the fence about whether I want this responsibility or not.
And what's your brilliant plan to curb the abuses that involves less than 20 minutes of labor from the legitimate users of the system? Got any Unicorns and Rainbows to address that one? Not that I doubt there's a better solution, our legislators being the social-economic geniuses that they are, but I don't hear you with anything better beyond: leave things the screwed up way they are, because any change might slightly inconvenience someone who "doesn't deserve" it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @08:20PM (1 child)
So you claim. How does that information magically transport itself to the appropriate bureaucracy. How does my brother document that? How does my brother CYA in case someone decides to audit it? Better to just not do it in the first place.
And your hypocrisy is noted. So what?
Just not waste the time in the first place. Law enforcement has tools for this.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 09 2019, @10:59PM
Well, I'm sure some cop did something heinous to all of us at some point in our lives, but, for the most part, that $10K fine is directed at people who are abusing the system, and like a million+ other laws on the books that you, I, and your brother are in violation of every day, it's _probably_ not going to be the basis for future crucifixion. Unless you piss off "the man," and if you never had a cop do something heinous to you just because he felt like it, then you don't really have an appreciation for how exposed you are every single day to all sorts of bad "legal shit" that just doesn't happen because you're not out there being an irritating jackass to people who get off on ruining your day.
The Senate may take care of this, but only if it's not costing them some bargaining chip they value more.
Too late, your elected officials are pushing it now - probably in some small way as a response to the Panama Papers, which, IMO, needs a lot more response than this. Are they listening to your position, or mine, at the moment? Seems like mine.
Apparently not enough, in the opinion of the legislature.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @10:07PM
Righties are funny. If the other side points out existing inequalities about they system it's tough shit but they believe with their whole heart that they aren't racist but support, "Your papers, Mein Herr!" policies. Despite it being completely unnecessary to establishing that one has a residence in an area to be a voter in and maintains a comparable copy of the individual's signature at the polling place (not to mention being able to ask that individual after the fact if there is a fraud question) so that requiring such an identification is completely unnecessary towards deterring fraud.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:56PM
Just because I thought it would be funny, the info is from wikipedia. But at least 6 Billion has been 'allocated' for the wall (2.5 billion diverted from Department of Defense anti-drug funding; And $3.6 billion diverted from U.S. military construction projects around the world, including schools for children of American soldiers). Not sure haw much money has been spent, but either none or 'something' depending on whether you count replacing old wall as building 'The Wall' (As of July 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had begun to replace old fencing, no new wall had yet been built. 450 miles of new barrier is planned to be constructed by the end of 2020). And now the fun, to me, part:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:44PM
I think it is totally fair for people doing business in the US to identify themselves like this, as someone else said it they have to send the info to the IRS anyway. I can't see how this would do anything other than catch crimi als. And the cost? Learn math ya big dope, I thought you already knew it but your comment here says otherwise.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:10PM
Yeah, well, you know, if you wanna enjoy the benefits of incorporating and limited liability, you gotta pay a price, but we should start this "transparency" fight at the very top, not with the small fish.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 05 2019, @10:49PM (6 children)
Or we could do without any kind of government and save trillions every year.
Point: saving alone is meaningless. Cost/benefit is more appropriate, and I haven't seen any comment touching the benefit (I'll continue browsing them, maybe there are).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:52AM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:48AM (4 children)
Are you asserting there's no benefit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:22PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:46PM (2 children)
Then you'll need to prove your assertion. Or state it as a personal opinion
The level of taxes and the taxation base.
Can't repair those highways and keep the MIC satisfied in the same time - at least one of the two would be a benefit (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:08AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:21AM
Linky please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:41PM (9 children)
The quoted nfib article seems beyond slanted frankly...like the stuff about putting their "personally identifiable information at unprecedented risk" for example. Based on the other links, they need to report this to the Treasury Department. Is that somehow riskier than when they file taxes with the IRS?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:47PM (6 children)
The point isn't actually the risk, it's the reporting. When I was still a US citizen, I had to file taxes with the IRS. But I also, as an expat, I also had to file paperwork with the treasury department. It's a completely different set of forms. It's much the same information, but in a different format, with different instructions, and you're a federal criminal if you screw it up. WHY???
Small businesses already register their owners with the government, they already file taxes. Why does the government need the same information, in yet a different format, sent to yet a different agency?
Repeat this at the state, county and local levels. The amount of reporting required increases continually. Somehow old reporting requirements never disappear, but new ones are added all the time. The amount of non-productive crap business owners deal with is completely nuts, all because some bureaucrat somewhere had a brainstorm.
From what I've read from small business owners in the US, the continually increasing requirements of the census bureau are a perfect example. You have to report all sorts of minority/discrimination/classification data on your employees. Of course, before you can report that data, you first have to collect and manage that data. Which, of course, every mom'n'pop business is just dying to do, because what else would small business owners do with their copious spare time.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:59PM (3 children)
Yes, exactly. And the idiots in this thread saying "it is only $19 per year" or whatever do not understand that $19 is coming from their paychecks one way or another.
Listen to Peter Schiffs podcasts where he discusses why he moved part of his business overseas just because of junk like this. The US gov is an active impediment to people hiring Americans.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:10PM (2 children)
Or, it's added to whatever tax software you use and automatically completed and submitted costing the average business roughly nothing. (That software should be provided for free by the government but that's socialism, and a whole other topic, for the record.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:55AM
Why should things be so complicated that software needs to be provided? It's a deadend to make things that complicated when you can just not do it in the first place.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:14AM
Another huge problem with this assertion is that it goes to the US Treasury Department not the IRS. It's not tax related. Thus, it's not covered by tax software! So now, you have either some additional software that sends your information to the US Treasury Department. Or you have a massive information sharing uber program that sends all the appropriate information to the appropriate sources and never gets misappropriated by the usual suspects like US intelligence or Russian organized crime.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:12PM
Or the SBOs could just publish a webpage with the required information on it, one time - updated as required, and every agency in the country who needs it could scrape it from there. That would be real transparency.
If you were a Scandinavian, your annual income would be public record, much like property ownership is in the US, and, again, you could file your taxes as a transparent webpage. Shocking? Not really.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:14PM
Do they? How and where?
In fact, this has been an issue for quite some time [acfcs.org]:
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:33PM (1 child)
Taxes are legally protected from disclosure in most circumstances. I'm not sure FINCEN material is. Would a FOIA request produce PII?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @06:02AM
Such disclosures are under 5 USC § 552a(b) and are not allowed without the express written permission of the person in the record. There are exceptions to that rule, but they mostly apply to government, law enforcement, or litigation use. Based on the quoted language, I think the writer of the release thought they'd be under 5 USC 552, which uses the "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" standard for general FOIA disclosures. However, that provision wouldn't apply to this type of record, as there is no general purpose to the information beyond the names and PII contained in it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
Except those with 21 or more employees.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:27PM
There are other disclosure laws that already apply to the larger businesses.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:10PM (8 children)
Averaging is deceptive. The vast majority of Americans fall into a category of employee/minor/retired/unemployed. A much much smaller number are self-employed. This is going to hit those people and nobody else. And no it won't be worked into the price because there are a lot external reasons that limit the price a person can charge. So this isn't going to cost every American 0.5c. It will cost the vast majority nothing, and a small minority a lot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:25PM (7 children)
30 million businesses, with 20 or fewer employees - total US population is 325 million, so, sure, they clearly don't average > 12 employees each, but they do comprise at least 10% of the total population, and a much higher percentage of the working population.
I agree with the bitch and moan about yet another redundant reporting of repeated information to yet another branch of the government that can't communicate with itself. Still, the price (less than 30 minutes per business per year) seems small enough to pay for the result of getting that information "above board" and clearly visible to the agencies that have a reason to know it.
Personally, I believe that if you're doing business in the U.S., you should be transparent about who you are (not just a DBA ad in a newspaper classified that nobody reads - that may have worked in the early 1800s, not so much anymore), and even, gasp, what kind of profit/loss you are making. As stated elsewhere: my home and land ownership is all public record, as is everyone elses, and that doesn't seem to have imploded anybody's privacy into oblivion - sure, I get the occasional junk mail offering to buy my real-estate, I wish a pox on all junk mail, but hiding property ownership isn't the answer.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:36PM (4 children)
I've been in business for 15 years and even so, just this year some obscure state agency I'd never heard about wants some data that has taken over a week's worth of hours to complete. So much of this stuff is completely outside the realm of what you would think about -- about three or four years into my business, the city made me aware I wasn't paying property tax. I lease office space, have no company cars, nothing of any great value (desks, servers, chairs, paperclips, etc.). I literally have to pay property tax on my office supplies, though I don't actually have to count the paperclips and can estimate their value thankfully. Who would think that after paying sales tax on consumer goods, there would be some government entity out there looking to get a property tax on the value of those already taxed goods. Fine, whatever, I pay the city's stupid property tax on paperclips. Where this law differs from the normal level of oppressive bullshit, is the PRISON time. They won't go after banksters crashing the entire economy, but forget or not know about some form and you could go to prison. Nice.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @06:48PM (3 children)
Thank your city politicians for that one...
Thank your national level politicians for that one.
There are so many laws that so many people break every minute of every day - it's one of the things that I, as all powerful Emperor of the Matrix, consciousness transferred into the machine and re-living 1940 through 2140 over and over in simulation, would attempt to change and see what happens:
What if "THE LAW" actually said what it meant, and was enforced 100%? Laws could be so much more lax than they are, the freedom, and leveling of the playing field would be quite interesting.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:33PM (2 children)
You already admitted to being a lifelong corporate drone upthread, no surprise you do not understand the plight of people who want to live normal lives without feeding the beast.
Blame the politicians for that? No, blame you who keeps voting for and justifying this oligarchical crap just to get a few more coins in your pocket.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:50AM (1 child)
This is not oligarchic crap, quite the opposite actually by making it harder for people to run fraudulent businesses to launder their ill gotten monies and evade taxes. I don't think any honest business has any problem mailing a piece of paper outlining who has a stake in their business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:44AM
Oh? Have you run a business and dealt with all the regulatory crap? What do you think happens when one of the dozens of documents like this turns out to have an error or gets forgotten?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:28PM (1 child)
Except this information is *not* redundant. The Federal government does not currently require this information, and most states don't either.
As for the "costs," we have a single piece of paper, an inconsequential amount of ink, an envelope and a stamp. That, plus the 3-5 minutes (max) it may take to list the information required is negligible (all amounts are in USD):
Piece of paper: $0.02
Ink used (I'll fatten this up so no one can say I'm skimping on the costs): $.05
Envelope: $0.10
First Class Postage stamp: $0.55
Labor required (at $150/hour): $12.50 (again, fattened way up, this is a ridiculously high number)
Total: $13.22/year
Using the 30,000,000 businesses you mention, at the *inflated* rates I have above, that's ~$400,000,000 per year, about 20% less than the "estimate" in TFS.
The whining sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:44PM
Well, the real bitching and moaning is coming from the shell factories who now have to reveal how bogus they really are. If you recall the Panama papers, shell owners include some of the most rich and powerful- and some of them are smart enough to launch promotional whitewashing campaigns to protect their continued privacy / secrecy.
If you haven't seen it, The Laundromat is a pretty entertaining take on the situation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]