Have you heard of the Corporate Transparency Act? Apparently, it's freaking people out.

The law was passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act back in 2021 — before President Biden even took office. Its intention is to root out potential bad actors and terrorists who own corporate entities in the U.S.

In order to comply with the act, existing businesses and startups are required to report their "beneficial owners" (those that generally either own a significant amount of shares or exert significant influence over the operations) of the entity to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by the end of this year. Failure to report could result in fines as much as $10,000.

People are freaking out about it and I don’t’ understand why. Just think about it: the Small Business Administration says there are 33 million small businesses in the country. But only about 6 million employ people. The rest are independents, one-person shops and, of course, shell companies which exist in part to shield the identity of its shareholders. I’m sure most of these people are on the up-and-up. But to me it's not unreasonable for the government to want to get a little more insight into this murk, is it?

Well, for some, it's very unreasonable. So unreasonable that both the National Small Business Association (NSBA) and the Small Business Association of Michigan filed lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.

“[The act] unlawfully........

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