More good news on the CTA front. Fresh on the heels of the House Financial Services Committee advancing CTA relief, the Senate has stepped up with legislation of its own. Senators John Kennedy (R-LA) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a bill this week that mirrors the House approach, codifying Treasury’s March 2025 rule limiting beneficial ownership information reporting to foreign entities only, while also requiring FinCEN to delete the personal data already collected from American business owners under the original mandate.
It’s a welcome development and a sign that momentum is building on both sides of the Capitol.
The Kennedy-Lee bill takes the same pragmatic, risk-based approach to beneficial ownership enforcement, directing resources toward bad actors rather than treating the entire Main Street business community as a potential suspect. Here’s Senator Kennedy in an accompanying press release:
When an obscure government policy requires small business owners to fork over personal data that even our government admits it doesn’t need, it’s time to change that policy. That’s why I’m leading the bill to permanently end this burdensome mandate and keep law-abiding Americans’ personal information out of a database it should never have been in.
Nine senators were listed as original cosponsors and we’ll be hitting the Hill in the coming weeks to garner additional support.
The path forward in the Senate is not without obstacles. A handful of members on both sides of the aisle continue to view the CTA as a legitimate and legally defensible law enforcement tool. But the reality, as we’ve said before, is the CTA imposes its heaviest burdens on law-abiding Americans while doing essentially nothing to curb illicit activity.
So that means we have work to do. The good news is that the opposition is limited, and the voices cheering this relief are in the millions. We’ll be sharing those stories as we educate lawmakers on the importance of moving this bill and we hope you’ll do the same.