Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member. I am grateful for the opportunity to come to the floor and talk about H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act. I want to thank my good friend from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney) for her leadership in this area for well over a decade, her hard work, and her determination on improving our anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act rules. I appreciate the chair of the committee and her work as well. The legislation addresses how we might combat illicit finance activities by appropriately strengthening the collection of beneficial ownership information. Now, Mr. Chairman, a beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of ownership even though the title to some form of property is in another name. We have long debated in Congress the best way for this information to be collected. Let's be clear here. It is being collected by our financial services industry under our know-your-customer rules. The ability to set up legal entities without accurate beneficial ownership information, however, has long represented a key vulnerability in the U.S. financial system. As I say, all U.S. banks, brokerage firms, and financial services companies have a know-your-customer obligation to collect ownership information and, importantly, collect beneficial ownership information. This was further defined in May 2008 by a FinCEN rule. But not all shell companies are established for malicious purposes.…”