Small Business via Flickr cc license
In just over 2 months every small business owner in America is required to be registered with the Federal Government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The Biden/Harris administration rolled out this unconstitutional law, known as the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), on January 1st, 2024.
The CTA requires all small business owners in the United States, with revenue under 5 million and less than 20 full time employees to self-report to FinCEN, housed under the Department of Treasury.
According FinCEN’s website:
“FinCEN is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Director of FinCEN is appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury and reports to the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “
Your failure to report into this terrorism and intelligence database by January 1st, 2025 means that you will be subjected to fines of $591 per day and you could face a penalty of up to 2 years in federal prison. Small business owners in the United States could be jailed for up to 2 years for committing no crime, other than failing to turn over their personal, protected data to Big Brother.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Senator Warren Davidson (R-OH) seem to be the only two elected officials moving seriously against this unconstitutionality. Both offices have introduced the aptly named “Big Brother Overreach” Bill, but it has fallen on deaf ears.
With current elections being as close as they are in Ohio, perhaps Senator Sherrod Brown should be asked where he stands on this issue?
It is shocking that this has not been a national campaign issue already and, unfortunately, millions of small business owners don’t even know this law exists. Nor do they know that they will automatically be in violation of this law on January 2nd. Talk about an “October Surprise.”
Why has the legacy media, on both sides of the aisle, been silent on this? Why is this dangerous piece of legislation not being exposed for the tyranny that it is?
President Trump vetoed the NDAA in 2019, effectively stopping the CTA, but it resurfaced and was passed with a veto proof majority in 2021, which makes it even more urgent to get this issue in the public eye.
What is FinCEN?
Enforcement of the CTA falls under The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN); a bureau within the Department of Treasury. FinCEN’s mission statement reads:
“FinCEN’s mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit activity, counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and promote national security through strategic use of financial authorities and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence”
The first question that we need to be asking is why are innocent small business owners being asked to provide all of their personal information to a federal database that reports directly to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence? Does the federal government classify all small business owners in the United States as “terrorists”?
Secondly, the Department of Treasury is not known for its track record of impartiality. Non-profit organizations have previously been targeted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), also housed under the same Department of Treasury.
In 2013, the IRS, under Lois Lerner’s leadership targeted conservative non-profit groups with the name “tea party”, “patriot”, etc., and in a brazen act of political warfare, denied and/or revoked their non-profit status.
The Corporate Transparency Act is nothing more than the “for profit” equivalent of the same non-profit Department of Treasury scandal of years back. Where is the guarantee that this database, housed under the Department of Treasury, will not be weaponized?
FinCEN is creating a massive federal database of every single small business owner in the United States, with the potential of jail time for failure to self-report and massive fines. However, if your revenue is over 5 million, and you have 20 or more full time employees, you are exempt from this intrusive law and regulatory nightmare. This law does not apply to Blackrock, Pfizer, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. This law has been set up, exclusively, to target small business owners.
Even more concerning is the fact that the National Department of Treasury Union has openly and unapologetically endorsed Kamala Harris for President. Partisan enforcement of CTA, by an unelected bureaucracy, against political enemies is not a question of “if”, but “when”.
One especially alarming part of FinCEN’s mission statement reads:
“…….security through strategic use of financial authorities and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence”
“Dissemination” to who? Who does FinCEN share this data with?
A World Wide Web of data sharing
FinCEN is a member of the Egmont Group, and it serves as the United States’ Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) for the Egmont Group, as part of a wider network of 177 international FIU’s.
In the UK the equivalent is the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) or the National Crimes Agency (NCA), who are also member FIU’s of the Egmont Group. The equivalent office to FinCEN in Canada would be the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), also focused on Terrorism finance, and if you are “down under” in Australia it would be the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).
Why is this important and concerning? Well, because under data sharing and cooperative agreements that FinCEN and the Egmont Group are a party to, this means that your information, to include your residential address, could be shared and made available around the world with the push of a button or a database query, and you would never know.
Who are the Egmont Group?
The Egmont Group, of which FinCEN is a member FIU, was founded in Brussels in 1995 as an international network to facilitate information sharing and dissemination to counter anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing. It has been headquartered in Canada since 2008.
According to its website:
“As a global organization, the Egmont Group both facilitates and prompts the exchange of information, knowledge and cooperation amongst member FIUs.”
The fact that information is shared, not only with allied “five eye” nations, but much wider through the Egmont Group’s FIU network, is of immediate concern.
The Council for Financial Activities Control in Brazil, another member FIU, could conceivably have access to this shared information. Remember that Brazil is controlled by the far left socialist leadership under Lula da Silva. Do you want your information being shared with comrade Lula? Let’s not forget that Lula’s government is currently targeting Elon Musk, who has the resources to fight this, but what about “mom and pop” small business owners across the United States, who don’t have the same financial resources?
The French equivalent to FinCEN is TRACFIN. No sane person would want their personal financial information being shared with Emmanuel Macron or his government. What about Mexico? Do you really trust your information with the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera? Or what about Russia’s FIU? Or Venezuela’s FIU? How about Palestine?
You can find the full list of Egmont Group FIU member states, including FinCEN here:
Earlier this year FINTRAC, the Canadian equivalent to FinCEN was hacked. Canadian authorities still have no idea how bad this data breach actually was. Your information could be shared among multiple databases and FIU’s, including FINTRAC, exposing your personal and sensitive financial data, with no guarantees of security or privacy.
Putting international data sharing concerns aside, the Federal Government in the US doesn’t have a positive track record for protecting personal data, either. Perhaps the best example of this was the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach, in 2015, under the Obama administration.
But don’t worry, I’m sure the sensitive personal and financial data of millions of innocent small business owners will be safe with FinCEN.
Most concerning is that the Egmont Group is based in Canada. Every FIU, including FinCEN, sits under a separate entity under Canadian jurisdiction. Does anyone really trust Justin Trudeau’s Canada and his unelected bureaucracy any more than they trust the unelected bureaucracy in America? Here is a list of the Egmont groups’ affiliate organizations:
Vice President Kamala Harris wants to tout her “Opportunity Agenda” and her support of small businesses, yet her administration, of which she is the sitting Vice President, is moving at lightning speed to regulate and criminalize millions of small business owners in the United States. This includes massive fines and up to 2 years in federal prison..
The CTA is a clear violation of the 4th amendment, the 5th amendment and the 10th amendment. State Attorney General’s need to weigh in, urgently. Entity creation and registration has always been a States’ right issue. This is the largest first step the United States has ever taken towards nationalizing private business ownership under a federal umbrella.
So what if you decide you want to close your business and not be forced to hand over your personal data to this terrorism and intelligence database? According to FinCEN, enforcement is retroactive. As long as you operated a small business for even one day in 2024, you are still required to self-report, even though you no longer own that business or it has been dissolved. Again, your failure to do so could land you in prison.
The Corporate Transparency Act is not about “transparency” or “compliance”, it is about “control”. Unfortunately, without more citizen engagement, and without this being a front and center campaign issue, it seems that little will be done to stop this massive government overreach. If the legacy media won’t cover this then the alternative media like The Gateway Pundit, and citizen journalists will.
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