A few years ago, in 2018, the Small Business Committee in Congress held a hearing on how
the opioid crisis is impacting small businesses. As a small business owner, I paid attention. Not only because of the direct harm to my company but because I all too often see the pain of neighbors, colleagues, and others in the community impacted by the crisis.
At the hearing, a business owner in West Virginia said, “Drug addiction knows no bounds. Addicts are our sons, our daughters, our mothers and our fathers.” The Director of the Ohio Small Business Development Center said: “A significant challenge to Ohio’s current business operations – in both the urban [and] rural communities – is Ohio’s opioid crisis.” The Center even created a workshop called “The Opioid Crisis in the Workplace: The Proactive Role Employers Can Take.”[1]
I couldn’t agree more. Let me suggest an update to their list of what small businesses can do: I urge all my fellow business owners to take the few minutes to register now under the Corporate Transparency Act.
For context, the Act was passed in 2020 to end the abuse of anonymous company ownership. These anonymously owned shell companies are notoriously used to hide and launder the illicit proceeds of illegal drug trafficking. For example, not long ago an international Chinese narcotics ring used anonymous companies to sell fentanyl that led to the death of two people from Akron, Ohio. Likewise, the perpetrators of a $200 million conspiracy used anonymous shell companies to pass off back-alley drugs as proper prescriptions. This means that regular Americans looking for relief from their diabetes, dementia, or high blood pressure were at risk of receiving unsafe, unlicensed medications.
Additionally, the direct impacts of the opioid crisis on small business are increasingly being recognized. The U.S Chamber of Commerce Foundation did a survey in 2019 that found 50% of U.S. employers reported that they were impacted by the opioid crisis.[2] Health care costs, productivity and absenteeism were among the top concerns.
We have all heard the mantra that to catch these criminals, follow the money. But what if the money trail ends at an anonymous shell company registered in the United States with accounts in offshore havens? The ease with which drug cartels can abuse this country’s corporate and financial system must end.
Given the severity of the situation, it should not be surprising that a survey conducted earlier this year found that 77 percent of small business owners agreed that, “Small businesses must be transparent about who owns them in order to really stop drug traffickers, terrorists, and other criminals.”
Existing businesses have until the first of the year to comply and yet many remain unaware of the law. Consider this my effort to spread the word that a few minutes can help protect our communities – our employees, customers, friends and family – from the devastation of the opioid crisis.
The drug cartels that push the poison into our towns do it because they make enormous sums of illicit money. They pursue a devastatingly harmful but lucrative business model that relies on anonymity. We need to end the secrecy that allows these criminals to personally benefit and fuel their continued operations. This law is a much needed, promising and timely step.
Author Craig Shirley is Chairman of Citizens for the Republic
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