I 
114TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 4450 
To amend title 31, United States Code, to ensure that persons who form 
corporations or limited liability companies in the United States disclose 
the beneficial owners of those corporations or limited liability companies, 
in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corpora-
tions and limited liability companies for criminal gain, to assist law 
enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money 
laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations 
and limited liability companies, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 3, 2016 
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York (for herself, Mr. KING of New 
York, Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California, Mr. LYNCH, Mr. CAPUANO, 
and Ms. MOORE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To amend title 31, United States Code, to ensure that per-
sons who form corporations or limited liability companies 
in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of 
those corporations or limited liability companies, in order 
to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States cor-
porations and limited liability companies for criminal 
gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, 
and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other 
misconduct involving United States corporations and lim-
ited liability companies, and for other purposes. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Incorporation Trans-
parency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Nearly 2,000,000 corporations and limited 
liability companies are being formed under the laws 
of the States each year. 
(2) Very few States obtain meaningful informa-
tion about the beneficial owners of the corporations 
and limited liability companies formed under their 
laws. 
(3) A person forming a corporation or limited 
liability company within the United States typically 
provides less information to the State of incorpora-
tion than is needed to obtain a bank account or driv-
er’s license and typically does not name a single ben-
eficial owner. 
(4) Criminals have exploited the weaknesses in 
State formation procedures to conceal their identi-
ties when forming corporations or limited liability 
companies in the United States, and have then used 
the newly created entities to commit crimes affecting 
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interstate and international commerce such as ter-
rorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, tax eva-
sion, securities fraud, financial fraud, and acts of 
foreign corruption. 
(5) Law enforcement efforts to investigate cor-
porations and limited liability companies suspected 
of committing crimes have been impeded by the lack 
of available beneficial ownership information, as doc-
umented in reports and testimony by officials from 
the Department of Justice, the Department of 
Homeland Security, the Financial Crimes Enforce-
ment Network of the Department of the Treasury, 
the Internal Revenue Service, the Government Ac-
countability Office, and others. 
(6) In July 2006, a leading international anti- 
money laundering organization, the Financial Action 
Task Force on Money Laundering (in this section 
referred to as the ‘‘FATF’’), of which the United 
States is a member, issued a report that criticizes 
the United States for failing to comply with a FATF 
standard on the need to collect beneficial ownership 
information and urged the United States to correct 
this deficiency by July 2008. 
(7) In response to the FATF report, the United 
States has repeatedly urged the States to strengthen 
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their incorporation practices by obtaining beneficial 
ownership information for the corporations and lim-
ited liability companies formed under the laws of 
such States. 
(8) Many States have established automated 
procedures that allow a person to form a new cor-
poration or limited liability company within the 
State within 24 hours of filing an online application, 
without any prior review of the application by a 
State official. In exchange for a substantial fee, 2 
States will form a corporation within 1 hour of a re-
quest. 
(9) Dozens of Internet Web sites highlight the 
anonymity of beneficial owners allowed under the in-
corporation practices of some States, point to those 
practices as a reason to incorporate in those States, 
and list those States together with offshore jurisdic-
tions as preferred locations for the formation of new 
corporations, essentially providing an open invitation 
to criminals and other wrongdoers to form entities 
within the United States. 
(10) In contrast to practices in the United 
States, all 28 countries in the European Union are 
required to have formation agents identify the bene-
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