House committee backs memorial asking Congress to repeal Corporate Transparency Act

Representative Jordan Redmond, R‑District 3, told the House Business Committee on Feb. 11 that House Joint Memorial 3 asks the United States Congress to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act and “eliminate red tape for small businesses.”

The memorial drew testimony from Idaho Secretary of State staff and a small‑business advocate who said the federal rule placing beneficial‑ownership filing requirements on companies has imposed heavy administrative burdens, generated confusion because of shifting court decisions and raised privacy and security concerns.

Nicole Fitzgerald, chief deputy secretary of state, told the committee that the state’s business services office — which handles filings for roughly 900,000 businesses — has received surges of calls about the rule and that staff time spent answering questions has delayed other services. “The consequences of the Federal Corporate Transparency Act…has created significant administrative burdens, caused confusion, sometimes chaos among Idaho business owners,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald described the implementation timeline and the legal uncertainty businesses have faced: FinCEN began accepting reports Jan. 1, 2024; courts issued conflicting injunctions in late 2024 and early 2025, and the Supreme Court later ruled in favor of the law while a separate case, Smith v. Department of the Treasury, remained pending. She also told the committee that state staff and business owners have worried about a reported cybersecurity incident affecting Treasury systems and about fraudulent solicitations that charge businesses to “file” their information on the businesses’ behalf.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane characterized the memorial as a pushback against what he called federal overreach and said the CTA treats ordinary small‑business owners as if they are suspected criminals. “The challenge is it assumes that every small business owner is a terrorist, a drug dealer, or money launderer until they prove otherwise,” McGrane said, urging lawmakers to support the memorial and to pursue alternate ways to target bad actors.

Denise Hansen Lefever, a CPA from Meridian who said she has written congressional offices and the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, told the committee she supported full repeal. She cited privacy concerns about collecting Social Security and driver’s‑license numbers, the cost and confusion of compliance for small businesses, and the severity of penalties for reporting failures.

Committee members discussed tradeoffs: several spoke in favor of sending the memorial to the House floor but some said a federal replacement targeting shell companies would be preferable to leaving a regulatory gap. Representative Marvin moved to send House Joint Memorial 3 to the floor with a "do pass" recommendation; the committee approved the motion by voice vote.

The memorial itself asks Congress to repeal the Corporate Transparency Act; it does not create new state requirements or change existing Idaho statutes.