Weekly Legislative Update
May 6, 2024

TIA Joins Letter Calling for CTA Repeal Legislation

TIA continues to join and lead efforts calling for CTA repeal. Below is a recent letter sent by TIA.

Dear Senator Tuberville and Congressman Davidson:

The undersigned organizations, representing millions of small businesses, strongly support legislation to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). Your bill, appropriately entitled the “Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act,” would put an end to this poorly constructed and onerous reporting regime.

The CTA was designed to help law enforcement prevent money laundering by requiring shell companies to report information regarding their beneficial owners (BOI) to the Department of Treasury. The law, however, defines a shell company as any legal entity with 20 or fewer employees or $5 million or less in revenues. In other words, every small business in the United States.

The concept of beneficial owner is broadly defined as well, and includes owners, senior management, members of the board, and any employee or outside consultant exerting significant control over the businesses’ operations. 

Covered entities must report and regularly update the personal information of their “beneficial owners” to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) or face significant fines and jail time.

As a result of this broad sweep, FinCEN expects to collect over 32 million submissions just this year, with an additional five million annual submissions thereafter. Multiply 32 million by the number of beneficial owners per entity, and it becomes apparent that the CTA reporting regime is likely the biggest data collection regime in the history of the federal government outside of the Tax Code. 

Despite its unprecedented scope, we expect the CTA to be of little practical use to law enforcement, as criminals are unlikely to accurately self-report their information to FinCEN. Meanwhile, because the CTA targets entities with low revenues and few employees, the brunt of its reporting burden and excessive penalties will be shouldered by law-abiding, Main Street businesses.   

Last month, the District Court for the Northern Alabama ruled the CTA exceeded the Constitution’s enumerated powers and was therefore unconstitutional, but the resulting injunction applies to the plaintiffs only – members of the National Small Business Association. As a subsequent notice from FinCEN made clear, all other covered entities are still required to file their BOI reports by the end of the year.

Your legislation would put an end to this remarkable overreach by repealing the CTA in its entirety. It would end this unnecessary reporting regime before it gets started and it would give Congress the opportunity to craft a better approach that balances our national security needs with the interests and rights of law-abiding small business owners.

The undersigned organizations are grateful for your efforts and strongly support this legislation.

Sincerely,  

Tire Industry Association and other trade associations

Tire Industry Association Opposing Warehouse Worker Protection Act

Members of Congress introduced the Warehouse Worker Protection Act on May 2nd, which includes several OSHA provisions. Despite the bill’s industry-specific title, the impact of the OSHA provisions will harm the economy nationwide. TIA sent a letter to Congress urging them to reject the bill.

The bill attempts to restrict employers’ use of workplace productivity quotas but instead will result in lost businesses, economic growth, and jobs. The bill also mandates OSHA issue two new rulemakings. One would regulate ergonomics in warehouse distribution centers, despite how difficult it would be for OSHA to regulate this space, how expensive it would be for businesses to comply with the rule, and the fact that a previous effort by the agency to issue an ergonomics standard was nullified by Congress on a strong bipartisan basis. The second rulemaking requires individuals trained in first aid in all warehouse distribution centers. Finally, the bill forces all employers to abate hazards for any “serious, willful, or repeated” citations before they have an opportunity to challenge the findings, infringing on their due process rights. 

Full statement:

TIA expresses our strong opposition to the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, legislation that purports to protect workers in the warehousing and distribution industries. 

In reality, the law would impose long discarded and unworkable regulations on employers, curtail their due process rights when challenging OSHA citations, and hamstring a critical part of our national supply chain with commensurate negative impacts on jobs and the economy. Congress should reject this ill-conceived and poorly written bill.

Among its gravest flaws, the Warehouse Worker Protection Act resurrects OSHA’s long-discarded ergonomics standard. When this regulation was first promulgated a quarter century ago, it was found to be so unworkable that a strong bi-partisan majority of Congress voided it in the first-ever use of the Congressional Review Act. 

Congress was right then and should not revisit this issue now. In addition, the bill would force employers to implement costly remedial measures before they have been found guilty of an OSHA violation.

The bill would also establish a highly burdensome system to micromanage the warehousing and distribution industry, which will undermine the efficiency of this vital part of our nation’s supply chain. 

Finally, despite its narrow sounding title, the legislation would impact workplaces in nearly every industry sector nationwide.

The Warehouse Worker Protection Act is opposed by a wide variety of employers and industries, demonstrating the breadth of the bill’s impact and the serious consequences it will have on the economy.

TIA urges Congress to reject this bill.