New Delhi, June 6 -- The decision came with fanfare. In March 2025, President Donald Trump celebrated what he called the end of an "absolute disaster" for small businesses - the suspension of a federal requirement that U.S. companies disclose who actually owns them. "Exciting news," he wrote on Truth Social. The Treasury Department, he announced, would no longer be the compliance headache that had haunted American entrepreneurs.

the one through which drug cartels, fraudsters, and foreign adversaries move billions of dollars through the American economy each year, hidden behind anonymous limited liability companies and corporations no regulator could see through.

Now the U.S. Government Accountability Office has put that trade-off in wri...