(The Center Square) – An Ohio think tank is joining a congressman to fight new national business reporting requirements.
While U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, has again introduced legislation to stop the Corporate Transparency Act, The Buckeye Institute recently filed a court brief to do the same thing.
The act required small businesses to file private and personal data in a new federal registry by Dec. 31. A lawsuit filed by the National Federation of Independent Business and others put those filings on hold.
In January, Davidson reintroduced the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, which would stop reporting requirements for small businesses around the country. The same legislation was introduced during the last Congress but failed to pass.
Now, The Buckeye Institute filed its fourth amicus brief with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to uphold an injunction against the act the group calls “sweeping and ill-advised.”
“The alarming reporting requirements in this law constitute an unconstitutional dragnet federal surveillance program of American small business owners,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute and counsel of record on all four briefs. “This Orwellian scheme flies in the face of our First Amendment-protected right to associate, free from the government’s prying eyes.”
The law requires around 32 million small businesses to register names, addresses, birth dates and copies of unexpired driver’s licenses and passports for each business owner. Fines can reach $500 a day for each day the filings are late, incomplete or inaccurate.
As previously reported by The Center Square, Davidson has been pushing Congress to repeal the law completely.
“The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network infringes American small business owners’ privacy rights by forcing them to disclose sensitive information to the government,” Davidson said. “The CTA is a disaster for small businesses and must be repealed immediately.”
