Senator John Kennedy announced on Apr. 29 the introduction of a bill aimed at stopping the U.S. Treasury Department from collecting personal information from small business owners that he says is unnecessary.
The proposed legislation seeks to address concerns about privacy and regulatory burdens imposed by federal requirements for small businesses to report Beneficial Ownership Information, including names, birth dates, addresses, and unique identifiers. Kennedy said, “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.”
Several senators joined Kennedy in introducing the bill, including Roger Marshall, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Shelley Moore Capito, Jim Justice, Tim Sheehy, Pete Ricketts and Jim Banks. Marshall said he has heard concerns from Kansas small business owners about costly reporting requirements under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), stating: “Since the CTA took effect…requiring American small business owners to register sensitive personal information with a federal database was not going to work.” Lee added his opposition by saying: “I have long opposed the Corporate Transparency Act’s overregulation and its Beneficial Ownership Information reporting requirement and have ardently advocated for repeal.”
According to Kennedy’s office official website, he holds degrees from Vanderbilt University (magna cum laude in political science, philosophy and economics), a law degree from University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Civil Law with first class honors from Oxford University. He also serves on Senate committees for appropriations, banking, budget and judiciary according to his official biography. Additionally,the website reports he holds top Republican positions on subcommittees for energy/water development and economic policy; contributes as an adjunct professor; served as executive editor of the Virginia Law Review; was president of his senior class at Vanderbilt; authored books/articles on Constitutional law; and has taught as a substitute teacher.
The background provided notes that after implementation of 2021’s Corporate Transparency Act requiring such data collection by FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), regulators found these requirements too onerous for many businesses. In March 2025 FinCEN narrowed its rule so only foreign companies must report such information—pausing domestic data collection—and Kennedy’s bill would make this change permanent while deleting previously collected domestic data.
Supporters argue that ending this mandate could save taxpayers $9 billion per year overall while saving U.S. small businesses $6.7 billion over ten years.