Video from Colorado Bar Association CLE's Business Institute
By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher today blasted a bill being heard in Congress that would increase corporate financial reporting requirements as a means of stemming money laundering.
At a conference of business lawyers, the Colorado Bar Association CLE’s Business Law Institute, Buescher said the bill would impose financial hardships on states and may be a disincentive to the creation of new businesses.
“The secretaries of state have come out unanimously against this bill,” Buescher said.
Buescher said SB 569 would significantly change “the way you do business, and frankly I find it quite scary.”
If the bill passes, the names, addresses and identification of beneficial owners of corporations would have to be disclosed upon corporation creation, he said. Changes in ownership would also have to be disclosed.
“You would have to examine a credible digital ID,” Buescher told the lawyers. “Now, I don’t know how you’re going to do that. … (And) my clients didn’t always tell me when there was a change in beneficial ownership.”
At another point in his speech, Buescher noted that 98.5 percent of Colorado corporations are created remotely and electronically without a lawyer or an incorporating person visiting the secretary of state’s office.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who co-sponsored the legislation, contends that the state laws effectively allow arms trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling and tax fraud to flourish, The New York Times reported today.