For years under Joe Biden, small businesses in Missouri had to deal with burdensome regulations that saddled them with more paperwork and extra costs, often without regard to how it would affect their ability to operate. This was perfectly exemplified by a Treasury Department rule that pulled small business owners away from running their businesses just to waste hours on satisfying Washington’s compliance demands.

Thankfully, the Trump Administration just delivered a win for Americans and small businesses everywhere, and it did it by simply getting government out of the way. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, just eliminated one of the most burdensome reporting mandates small business owners have faced in years, and it’s exactly the kind of common-sense deregulation that lets Main Street get back to work instead of being buried in needless paperwork.

For the last two years, small business owners across the country were required to report detailed ownership information to the federal government under the Corporate Transparency Act, essentially proving they weren’t criminals just to run a family shop or farm. Treasury has now made permanent the enforcement pause it first put in place back in March 2025, meaning that requirement is gone for good — not paused, not delayed.

Treasury is also deleting the ownership data that Americans and businesses have previously submitted, wiping the slate clean rather than just stopping future paperwork. Foreign companies reporting on behalf of foreign individuals still have to comply, so the rule stays focused on catching bad actors instead of burying honest business owners in red tape.

It didn’t matter if you were a third-generation hardware store owner in Sikeston or a family farm outside Caulfield. If you owned a piece of a family shop, Washington wanted your information on file, backed by the threat of steep penalties if you got the paperwork wrong. That’s the kind of rule that bureaucrats thought was reasonable, yet made no sense to anyone else. It was never the mom-and-pop shops or the family farms causing financial crime in this country. But they were the ones stuck filling out the forms, while the actual criminal networks this law was supposed to target barely noticed it existed.

The Trump Administration listened to what small business owners have been saying for years, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered. I didn’t come to Washington to add to the mountain of red tape folks already have to deal with. I came here to help eliminate it so business owners can spend their time running their companies — not trying to prove they aren’t a criminal to a federal agency most have never even heard of.

While we should have safeguards in place to know whether terrorists are owning or investing in businesses, placing a massive burden on honest, hardworking Americans was never the answer.  Prior to the Treasury Department eliminating this requirement, I voted against the Corporate Transparency Act several times and as well as co-sponsored the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, which would permanently block the government from enforcing these beneficial ownership rules against American small businesses. I’ll keep pushing to root out bureaucratic mandates like this one, because hardworking Americans shouldn’t have to fight Washington just to keep their doors open.