cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/71226
The Trump administration has finalized a rule that will allow shell companies and other questionable entities to conceal their ownership from federal investigators, in a move that critics say will only further facilitate corruption in the U.S. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced on Tuesday that it is ending the regulation that requires companies to…
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How can he repeal a law from congress?
He didn’t repeal the law. He repealed an administative rule/regulation (that was never really implemented in the first place).
The law was the NDAA (part of which was the Corporate Transparency Act). Those laws still exist. Ordinarily when a “law” is passed by congress it’s too goddamn vague to implement. So federal agencies start the administrative rulemaking process (which usually takes years to decades) and eventually the appropriate federal agency implements some set of regulations that are the agency’s best effort to implement what they think congress kinda meant with the original law.
In this case, when Biden was president, a rule was passed to implement part of the Corporate Transparency Act that required corporations to report “beneficial owners” to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen). The presumption of this rule was that if you are a beneficial owner of a corporation (but not a big one), you are a criminal or will be, and FinCen needed to know who you are to come bust your ass in the future. The rule was created and implemented fairly quickly in federal rulemaking terms, and like most contentious regs, it was immediately challenged in court, and there were injunctions and reinstatements. and and FinCen was on-again and off-again in telling people to report or not report. It was a shitshow, but moreover, it had a very short compliance deadline, and real teeth in terms of fines, and even by FinCen’s own estimates most “beneficial owners” of corporations had no idea the rule even existed. It was the sort of thing that wouldn’t be hard for the well heeled people to work around, but a pain in the ass for ordinary small corporations. It was feel-good legislation that wouldn’t have done much to stop crime (because we kinda know who the big financial criminals are anyway).
Because the Senate has been controlled by corrupt Republicans for an entire human generation, which means no laws governing finance have actually passed in ages. As a result all governing has had to be done through executive order because it’s literally the only way to get things done.
It’s a terrible and unstable way to govern a country, because when the next guy comes in he gets to just say “nah I’m not gonna do that”. See also: the FCC rule requiring your bills to have an actual breakdown of the costs and fees that Trump just threw away.
The regime generally uses the strategy of “you can just do things”, and nobody, of any political or non-political persuasion, at any agency or institution anywhere in the country, has the fucking stones or morals to do fuck-all about it. This is a demonstrable truth. This is why we are here. This is how we got here.
The opposition simply… isn’t.
I think it’s because it was a rule created to fulfill the voted on act—and department creates the rules. In my understanding, the departmental role in actual rule making and implementation is where it gets wiggly. Please someone correct me/clarify at will! https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/financial-regulation/trump-administration-wipes-beneficial-ownership-database-in-permanent-removal-of-anti-corruption-safeguards/ar-AA2a2jBD
This is what I want to know