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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised it is possible to get a corporate credit card without a human’s name or identity tied to it.

Isn't it tied to someone via the corporation's ownership, still?

The article said it was possible to register an LLC in those states without a name, and the CC is (apparently) tied to the LLC, not the owner or employee.

But they still record the name of the person who registers it, right?

It's not like they'll find a homicide tied to a CC and then be like, "oh, the CC is in the name of an ownerless corporation, I guess we're out of luck".

The article is slightly vague on this point. It says NV/WY/NM "don’t require corporations to record their owner", but that is not really accurate.

The owners are recorded when the LLCs are filed with the secretary of state, however these states are simply willing to keep the identities of the owners private, without publishing them as most other states do. As in most other states, you do need a Registered Agent, but you can delegate this to an attorney or company who serves to receive legal notices, correspondence, etc.

If there is any type of law enforcement investigation of the company, police would simply go to the secretary of state to determine the owners.

The owners are recorded when the LLCs are filed with the secretary of state, however these states are simply willing to keep the identities of the owners private

How hackable/social engineering proof are these state agencies? How likely is it that they are already compromised by people acting as resources for federal and non-governmental organizations?

They're just regular departments of their respective states. That is to say, probably about average susceptibility to hacking and social engineering. I don't know any specifics about what might be sent to the feds, but you can be damn sure if the IRS or any other federal agency calls the state they will fully cooperate. None of this would actually work to hide from the government, just from random non-expert members of the public.

None of this would actually work to hide from the government, just from random non-expert members of the public.

In 2019, one should be most worried about throngs of people who have less income and delusions of grandeur who can organize their groupthink online.

Not all Corp credit cards record the name of the person registering them. The ones my company uses are all tied to the company and we internally manage keeping up with who has what.

I meant registering the corporation, not the CC.

A revocable trust can own an LLC. In that situation your name only exists on a piece of paper at your house. It's extremely common to get a Nevada or Delaware LLC with a revocable trust to protect identity. There are tons of libertarian companies that will sell you kits to set it all up.

That's fascinating. How and why?

I am not a lawyer, but I know people who have done it in the past. The states where you can do it value corporate privacy. When you create your LLC with a revocable trust, as far as I am aware, all you have to present is the first page of the trust document and the declarations of ownership are on later pages, the trust owns the LLC, you own the trust and your ownership is never recorded in public. It's complicated and is a great tool for people trying to do good (protecting identity for safety) and bad (patent trolls).

https://www.thebalance.com/pros-and-cons-of-revocable-living...

I'm an attorney and used to work for a bank. One of the hats I wore there was Anti-Money Laundering Officer. We had a potential client with this type of arrangement that went through several countries so I insisted on getting more and more information because it seemed suspicious that someone would go through all of that trouble unless they were doing something illegal. It turned out the gentleman traveled internationally quite a lot for business... and had accumulated three different families on three different continents. His revocable trust owned several LLCs as part of a complex plan to facilitate payments to all of his wives and children upon his death without them finding out about one another.

I regret that I wasn't privy to his plans for keeping them apart at his funeral.

What an odd moral thought experiment. I would guess this isn't exactly uncommon for a certain class of people and even though some people might feel revolted by it... If all goes to plan, I'm not sure that it's wrong?

My guess is that after his death it'll all just come undone with a discovery of his master digital calendar. So many birthdays!

A probable solution to the funeral thing is that the trust is set up to execute three funerals. Who care's what's in the urn, but it could deliver parts of him to all the places.

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