Transcript of the above video: 

This is actually bigger news than it would seem. This is kind of dry stuff but for folks, especially Americans, expats, for tax issues it is a big deal. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Reuters, that is reuters.com, the article is titled: US Treasury Department Says it will not Enforce Anti-money Laundering Law. Now bear in mind this is Reuters okay, so I mean I've gone at Reuters a few times over the years. They are if you go back, they were the intelligence service for the old Rothschild Banking Syndicate: I would argue they are probably still well ensconced in there, and frankly people seem to think I have some kind of problem with them or something. No, I just look at them like any other big organization that has got money, but they are what they are and sometimes those organizations come over and interact over here. That being said, as a news service, Reuters is quite good, so bear that in mind and the fact this is going out over this wire and it pertains to US Treasury Enforcement and Tax matters, take this seriously I guess is what I'm trying to say. That said, quoting directly: "The US Treasury Department said on Sunday it would not enforce an anti-money laundering law that obliges millions of business entities to disclose the identities of their real beneficial owners." Now interestingly, I saw a recent article in the Bangkok Post which I was going to make a video on, then I kind of ultimately decided - I may still do it - but for now, let me just mention it as an aside, it appears here that authorities in Thailand are looking to now go after nominees because of the whole issue with fake people working illegally in Thailand. My first question would be, I find it a little bit disingenuous that the current Administration here would be going after nominees especially when Mr. Thaksin some years ago used nominees to very much his own ends and that's the whole reason nominees are illegal in the first place. So, it drips with irony, let's just say, where the Core Coalition party is out there on the ramparts if you will against nominees. Meanwhile, I think it's a little bit disingenuous and it actually misses the point and it will actually probably do some damage to people who are really trying to do business over here. And when I say that, what am I talking about? There are tons of people that come to Thailand and they set up companies with a 49/51% set up in compliance with the Foreign Business Act. To have those people overly scrutinized because of a bunch of foreigners like the foreign tax stamp-pimps that have come in here and basically fake being a professional in Thailand or just outright fraud lawyers just total things like Dennis Ramm of so-called Siam Legal or not so-called, that's what it's called, but he's a so-called lawyer; he's a total fraud. We've had other frauds in the past like Mr. Brian Wright who used to fake being an American Attorney out here, an American Immigration Attorney. It turned out he got convicted of all kinds of sex offenses against minors, which again begs the question where is law enforcement, both from the American side and the Thai side on all these frauds? 

But that said, the point I am trying to make with regard to this is going after “nominees” misses the point. It's the people working illegally that's the problem. Moreover, look I'm on a number of companies with a number of different folks that I have set up over the years that do all kinds of different business as a Thai that yeah, I'm genuinely on there. Am I going to get a bunch of scrutiny? I'm not a nominee. We genuinely work in all of these companies and beyond even that, it's going to cause people to say “hey, do I want to invest in Thailand? Do I want to come over there? I have already got to deal with 49/51. Do I want to deal with heightened scrutiny from a bunch of people in order to be in that relatively disadvantageous position compared to other economies?” 

The point I am trying to make is here in Thailand, at least stop trying to search for “beneficial owners” to use the phraseology in this article. Maybe worry a little bit more about the people who are actually working illegally here, okay? As we are going to point out in this article, the US is moving away from hyper-scrutiny of a bunch of beneficial ownership because of the detrimental impact it has on the business community. That being said, quoting further: "The Trump Administration has opposed the Biden-era Corporate Transparency Act on the grounds that it is a burden on low-risk entities. The Act has faced repeated legal challenges. In a statement, the Treasury Department said it would not enforce any penalties under the Act against US citizens or domestic reporting companies." As we will get into in another video made contemporaneously with this one, "domestic" reporting companies may have import as it pertains to the US Thai Treaty of Amity specifically and certified companies, basically Americans doing business under such entities here in Thailand.

Suffice it to say though for purposes of this video it looks as though the Treasury Department under Trump is not going to be hyper-scrutinizing “beneficial ownership” interests excuse me interest or issues pertaining to beneficial ownership interest at least during this term. For small business owners, even expat ones, I can see where this could be a major benefit and a relief so perhaps some kudos are due to the current Administration.