Supreme Court Passes on Corporate Transparency Act Challenge; CIR Vows to Keep Fighting.  

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear Texas Top Cop Shop v. Blanche (No. 25-1290), the Center for Individual Rights’ constitutional challenge to the Corporate Transparency Act. CIR had asked the Court to take the unusual step of hearing the case right away, before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rules. Today’s order does not decide whether the Act is constitutional. It only means the case goes forward in the Fifth Circuit, where it remains pending. The Court also declined to review a parallel challenge, National Small Business United v. Bessent (No. 25-1201). 

As written, the Act would have required roughly 32 million businesses to report sensitive personal information about the people who own or control them to a federal law-enforcement database. What triggered the reporting obligation wasn’t selling anything, shipping anything, or crossing a state line. It was simply filing formation papers with a state.   

“The Court passed up the chance to decide whether Congress can force Americans to report themselves to a federal law-enforcement database just for starting a small business or forming a nonprofit or civic organization,” said CIR President Todd Gaziano. “The CTA does not regulate commercial activity; it regulates existence. The Treasury Department has exempted domestic companies for now, and we welcome its eleventh-hour concession that it does not need this information. But what one administration grants by rule, the next can take away. The statute itself is still on the books. And CIR will keep fighting for a constitutional ruling in the Fifth Circuit.”