Related to my posting yesterday, GAO Report – Company Formations: Minimal Ownership Information Is Collected and Available, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on November 14, 2006: Failure to Identify Company Owners Impedes Law Enforcement. The hearing “…examine[d] the issue of states routinely incorporating hundreds of thousands of new, non-publicly traded companies in the United States each year without obtaining the identity of the corporate owners, thereby impeding law enforcement investigations into persons misusing U.S. shell corporations for money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, or other crimes.”