It's not always nefarious. If I'm an investor, I might make an agreement with an LLC that I'll invest $1000 in their business, but I get 99% of their income and ownership control, or even 100%. There's no requirement that we register or publicly disclose our private agreement.
The real question is, what legitimate reason do you have to know who owns a particular thing or asset. If you see a car parked somewhere, do you have a legal right to know who owns it? What about a lemonade stand? What legitimate legal reason do you have to compel people to register their assets?
The government responsible for the jurisdiction in which your private agreement occurs should have a register of this information.
It doesn't need to be available to the public at large, but should be available to those responsible for the jurisdiction that could be affected by that agreement.
Re: Car parked somewhere. If it has a numberplate, then there's a government agency that can track it's ownership (pending whether it's been registered to a company that then has some opaque international ownership structure).
Re: Lemonade stand. Minimum level of asset value for registration?
But why does the government need this information, for everyone, and everything? Again, what is the legitimate reason? I understand tax liability, sure, but so long as someone is responsible for paying the taxes on a thing, why is it important who has control of the thing.
Because it is important to know who has control of the thing if they control the thing to park illegally, scam people, or dump toxic waste into the river. It does not need to be public, but the responsible party should be identifiable and accountable. To the extent that harm is minimal or can be efficiently mitigated if no responsible party can be identified, it is probably socially acceptable to sacrifice a little bit of accountability for convenience and reduced friction. But at scale it is ridiculous to allow the intentional and calculated ablation of responsibility against legitimate legal grievances.
Because of the power differential between an employee who's given the responsibility of X versus a director/owner who threatened to fire said employee if they don't do legally questionable / flat out illegal thing in regards to X.
99.99999% of the time it's OK. It's those instances when it's not OK that it becomes societally important to demonstrate consequences for illegality.
I think it'd become a problem that governments around the world would prioritise if every individual conducted their private affairs through a shell company structure. I said elsewhere that doing so is going to be a potential retirement project of mine.
LLC’s a privilege granted by the public. It’s a creation of the voters’ government. It absofuckinglutely should come with a right for us to know who’s benefiting from our permitting such an arrangement to exist.
To everything else that’s a government creation for public benefit, that carves out special shields from liability and can potentially survive far longer than an actual person? And that’s wholly optional?
Yes to those things I would probably apply the same logic. Not the different logic you suggest. The same logic.
Nobody’s making anyone ask the government to grant them an LLC if they want to risk some money.
But if you want the public to grant you special protections for you and your investments, and to form from the void, for you, an entity that can act on its owners’ behalf and enter contracts and survive beyond its creators et c et c, it totally seems reasonable that the public should know who’s benefiting from that. Like, that’s the least that ought to be asked in return.
I think if someone asks the government to create an immortal, legal quasi-person with special privileges for their private use, the public ought to get to know who’s benefiting from and controlling it. I think it’s proper that the public know who’s involved in those, yes.
The real question is, what legitimate reason do you have to know who owns a particular thing or asset. If you see a car parked somewhere, do you have a legal right to know who owns it? What about a lemonade stand? What legitimate legal reason do you have to compel people to register their assets?