Phillip Taylor and constitutional attorney Austin Hepworth discuss how this act will affect everyone who owns or works with small businesses. It is the Patriot Act on Steroids and was pushed through in a much larger bill.
All small business owners must submit personal information by the end of the year to a massive federal database. That database can be shared with all US intelligence agencies, the IRS, and local law enforcement. In addition, it can be shared with all international governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement. It is highly unconstitutional.
The ramifications of this bill in our daily business and regular lives are impossible to quantify.
owners and all those who deal with small businesses in order to help fight this
in the courts we have a fundraiser on August 17th in Springville Utah it is called save the ranchers rifle Roundup
and this is for all small businesses by the way it's not just ranchers it's if if you've got an LLC or an sc Corp or a
limited partnership or a PLC this will affect you so this is a very important
issue we're fighting against it in the courts you can help by going to save the ranchers.com we are having an all day
tactical rifle training for $250 you get a $400 value great trading from Cowboy
tactical training a great lunch and you'll be able to be there with individuals like Mar Oaks the Utah State
uh Treasurer Phil Lyman candidate for governor myself and my wife will be
there Gail rusika from from the Eagle Forum Etc so go to save the ranchers.com
go up at the top to the Roundup tickets and put in my code CWI quick I would
love to see you there [Music]
all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we are bringing on Philip Taylor from the homestead Liberation
league and constitutional attorney Austin Hepworth welcome
guys thanks for having us good to be here we are talking about the corporate transparency act this is something that
most people have not heard of it is seemingly as I've gone through the research on this a very possible maybe
absolute encroachment on civil lities and the Bill of Rights um Phil will you
tell us just a little bit about what the corporate transparency Act is Yeah so basically it's it's all under
the opes of fighting terrorism and moneya laundering right but what it is is it is a a mandate that all businesses
that are small businesses in the United States have to provide personal private
information of what's of all of their owners and what's called beneficial owners um so where these terms how these
terms are actually defined is where it gets really kind of sketchy but basically just on the high level you have to provide personal information
about these people um in your organization including identifying documents and photocopies of those
identifying documents so that they can use that information to determine whether or not you're involved with
terrorism or money laundering they can share that information with International governments um that they
are friendly with um so they give them a copy of your passport if they wanted to
and if uh this is all under the opes of fighting suspected crime and if they if
you don't comply with it then the penalties are severe and criminal um it's a $500 a day penalty for failure to
comply and up to two years in prison and if that information isn't updated those
those penalties are the same so let's say that you provided a copy of your driver's license and you moved and you
get a new driver's license if you don't UPS update uh the financial crimes enforcement Network which is a part of
the treasury within 30 days then you start stacking up a $500 a day fine yeah
that's that's pretty intense Austin what from what I understand this was
passed in 20121 it's now going into effect and by the end of the year this year 2024 all of this information has to
be well I received an email my LLC received an email saying that I had to
provide all of this information by the the year is that correct yeah so for any LLC that's
existing or Corporation or other entity filed with the state if it existed
before 2024 you have until the end of the year to provide it but any entity
that's filed this year you have 60 days after it's filed to okay and does this include let's talk about small
businesses because you guys are somewhat representing homesteaders Farms right so do are we including llc's es Corps
Limited Partnerships plc's Etc yes okay so all small business entities
outside of you know it's not an entity but out so if you've got a small business and you are not a sole
proprietor then this applies to you correct and it's it's important to
understand that if you filed something with the state some type of entity with the state um some people still call
themselves a soul proprietor because you can be taxed as that yes so just to make sure we clarify for anyone listening
that if you have an entity filed with the state um chances are very high that you need
to comply this to both of you what what are your biggest concerns with the CTA with the corporate
transparency act I I have a number of very big ones um so one is just from a fundamental
check and balance uh constitutional perspective the regulation of businesses
has been the state's domains for centuries now the federal government hasn't gone into that realm and the CTA
is a direct uh attempt by the government it's a it's openly stated that the
federal government says we're getting sick of the states and the different information they require we can't get all the info we want so we're going to
pass a uniform standard for business registration and so the feds are now venturing into the realm of regulating
something that's been the states for centuries um some people you know don't care they kind of
shrug their shoulders and say well the state can do it who cares if it's the fed or the the state but one of the
things that happens extensively is that states choose to regulate businesses differently to incentivize or promote
different types of conduct different types of businesses different types of economy within their states and every
state gets to do it differently and it creates a very strong overall fabric to America because business owners do
choose state byst state what works best for them um but from an even deeper
perspective and a more troubling perspective to me is just the Practical reality that
I can be listed as a beneficial owner on someone else's business
and if that business does something um if they speak out against let's say the
war in Israel or do whatever you know their their political activities
are then these other countries can request to know who the beneficial owners are they can get their passport
or their driver's license they can get this different information and they're allowed to use it for law
enforcement purposes which means that without a warrant without anything the
US just hands these countries my information says yeah Austin's associated with these entities these
groups and then these governments if I happen to travel there there could be a warrant for my arrest um and the same
concern takes place in the US the federal government can use any this information for law enforcement purposes
States if they want it this is ironic because the states regulate businesses they're the ones
that choose what information you provide or don't but if they want the information that you've had to give to the federal government they have to get
a warrant which is appropriate um based on the Bill of Rights but the federal
government doesn't until IRS and these others can look at it and go oh look you
were listed as being connected to this business you know this business had some tax issues we now want to see your stuff
um and that's just a a basic thing but when we go to the level of really
understanding what this does for political Association and Free Speech rights if one of the fundamental
abilities to associate if you have that freedom you have to be able to do it in private you have to be able to say we're
going to associate together and it's private and it's we have the ability to speak under a different name so the
homestead Liberation league for example they can speak as a group and individuals that may be targeted at
their work or employment or other place where it may not be favorable to say certain things um seek that refuge in
association with others and in groups and that's a consistent theme of Liberty it's a consistent Hallmark of it and if
the government can now know all of the main people associated with any group their identities where
they live you know updated within 30 days to track everything um I believe
very strongly will start to significantly weakened the local communities and little pockets of
freedom and liberty and people working for good things and it'll make it far easier to Target and harass and do other
things you know here's a question you know I I I know people that attended January
6th and they had nothing to do with much of anything they were just there right
and I I know these individuals I have all these individuals that have had their accounts Frozen their bank
accounts Frozen they've had to move Banks um just unbelievable stuff for simply
being there and you know not going into the the the uh into the capital or anything right
and and so here's something where if you talk about similar things or political
things on either side of the spectrum you're you've got a the these departments that are under
the executive branch that have been weaponized already and being are being more and more
weaponized against political speech you know now you've got basically
the CTA empowers finan to function as a domestic and a global tipster basically
that can tip off everyone from um you know international law
enforcement uh International intelligence agencies us intelligence agencies the IRS state and local law
enforcement agencies to do not just you know free uh you know
accounts and whatnot because of political speech but but to do pretty much
anything they want as far as sharing this information and and tipping off all of
these agencies isn't that a Bill of Rights problem it's a it's a major one I
mean it's I mean our our case itemizes a ton of the Bill of Rights violations
it's got I mean to your to your concern there that that's really the deepest concern to me is is first of all that
one of the things that uh if you get into the the act itself its terms are vague and that gives and they're like
hey we don't worry we'll Define the terms as we go which gives them a lot of attitude to redefine things but the
scary thing about it is uh if if I am a
if I'm just a regular person even if I'm not a business owner if I'm just a regular person walking around but I
happen to be really good friends with a business owner or I happen to be um you
know I let's say I'm somebody who gives uh business advice or something like that or I'm an employee that the CEO
really trusts and he gives me a lot of influence over marketing decisions in the company then I can be deemed as a
beneficial owner and so what people have to realize is that really what this does to some extent is it really discourages
people from exercising the First Amendment rights because not only does it create the problem of communities
coming together but think about it in these terms if there's potential economic consequences just for being
associated to somebody else like you're talking about with like January 6 then all of the sudden people are going to be
really careful about whether they go into business and form an entity right because now me running a business now
makes me a political risk for everybody around me it makes me it makes me you
know a threat to them and so it discourages me from in engaging in
Commerce in a legally secured way like I can go be a sole proprietor but there's a lot of legal consequences and and uh
ramifications of being a true Soul proprietor and so there's all sorts of
violations like it it violates your Fourth Amendment rights to privacy I violate your rights to Due Process um as
Austin was mentioning uh only the states have to get uh have to get a warrant and
or or a subpoena and what's the point of that that a unbiased third party judge
supposedly is reviewing evidence against you they don't just issue it to anyone
but they can give that information to a foreign government without that so that means that China could you know a law
enforcement department in China could contact in and say hey we're we're worried that Greg's involved with um
with money laundering so can you just go ahead and send us all the businesses he's associated with all the private
information about this so that we can we can check in on that and now now you're now you're a threat to all those around
you all those people that were listed as as potential beneficial owners which is hard to Define to begin with and so you
just go through the Bill of Rights and it's over and over it's it's forcing us to report on ourselves which is another
violation of our rights I mean our our case lays it out but to me that the deepest concern is that it's it's a way
of intimidating Americans um indirectly about our right to express ourselves and it's a way of
intimidating us to avoid entering into the most upwardly mobile aspect of our
economy and that is entrepreneurship yeah it just seems to me that it two things number one it is a
killer to the economy eventually if when start people start to realize what this means and how it works I mean it's only
going to take a few high-profile cases where where this comes up and where
where just like with a Patriot Act where it is the government becoming like a bully because of this intelligence this
information that they have have that is going to start exactly what you said Philip where where it's going to be how
do I you know do I do I do business with this person right or or are they on the
list right if they're blacklisted then you know am I going to do business with this with this company
it's kind of like saying well I may not know their ESG score so to speak right right that which
that will be a natural we we'll need those so that way we can properly you know vet each other yeah yeah exactly
it's like well what's your what's your score are you on the list you know it's that's right that is really concerning
and and so that also though is going to depress the economy it's going to depress you know it's going to say are
you in the accepted group politically the politically correct group of
entrepreneurs of of small businesses for me to work with you and if not then I'm
not going to work with you and it almost creates almost like this underground uh group of people if
they're not politically correct so to speak that are going to be having to do business with each other because they're
blacklisted does does does that make sense Austin or or am I am I just way off the way off the uh the ranch here no
and this this already happen so for example um I have a client who's you
know you when you when you're in the business space and you're try and raise some funds what happens is if you have a
close family member get arrested for something some felony they did or whatnot suddenly investors may not
invest in your business anymore because of something your dad did or a brother did there's already this notion of we
have to stay clean stay you know 10 feet away from trouble type thing um or 100
feet away from trouble and so people already do that and to your point with the um with January 6 that is a serious
point because there was almost a million people people at that rally on January
6th and very few of those went to the capital after talking percent wise very
few went over but like you say the the FBI said
it's our goal to contact every single person there and we're going to go through and part of what's happening is
there's America is really pushing and society's really pushing for this guilt by
association type mentality and and people are feeling it where we
may not consciously recognize it but we are deeply concerned when someone starts
saying something wild because what happens is if your CEO of a business says something wild suddenly your whole
business gets blacklisted for good or bad and and I'm even talking about among
consumers consumers will do this and people will say you know let's boycott and but from a legal perspective
if you look at things what's happening more and more is that if you have a situation of child abuse and a a dad
that was abusing a child they'll arrest the mom too for failure to report um so this mom could be in a
really tough situation trying to figure out what to do she's terrified of the dad but she doesn't report the abuse
they're arresting the mom too and the dad or you have the one Michigan situation where the son went to school
the parents didn't take him home he shot people there and now the parents are in jail um for that as well and and they
always pick kind of more Fringe cases or more serious cases to make big examples
of but I think people start to understand that there is some level of guilt by association that's creeping in
we're pushing people more and more there's another one I saw where a lady committed
suicide and they have now charged her boyfriend with manslaughter for bullying
her so extensively um to do that now is it possible you know that someone could be so
abusive and things they could drive them to that yes I'm not I'm not saying it's not possible um but more and more when
someone commits suicide we want to go after all the bullies out there we want to go after all these other people and
then if you were tangentially associated and you didn't report and you didn't say something um you know there's the saying
that's becoming popular silence is violence and things and what this does is when you then take all these societal
Concepts you impose this thing of saying oh look guess what Phil um we do some
business together and as an attorney I give you advice and so I actually am you
know maybe falling under the substantial control thing so even as an attorney giving advice to an extent I may be
considered a co- beneficial owner of some entities if I tell them no you can't do something and then they don't
do it or whatnot um but if I'm associated with every single one of those entities
then yeah I am going to be concerned and say do I want to be associated with all
these entities because if they're going to go do something crazy could it destroy my life um and this is a level
of fear I believe very strongly that Liberty the state of liberty
requires that we're able to just trust people to a certain level and work together laws like this destroy that
trust and it's a fundamental breakdown it's a fundamental attack on Liberty because it destroys the trust that's
necessary for Liberty to exist I have to be able to work with Phil and others to
the extent of saying yeah I trust you to this level I don't have to trust you with everything I don't give give my bank account number but we at least need
to be able to associate without fear that I'm going to get in trouble if you do something bad but now the CTA just
comes in and says Austin if any of those you associate with closely does
something bad and well you Al you already see this on social media just with individuals
right it's a matter of do I associate with this person if I don't block them if I if I like anything that they say
then how do I look if I'm associating myself with this person that has completely opposite political views as
an example right or and either side right it works it works pretty much both
ways and so I think the more information we have personally in our businesses
that becomes online or at least transparent to the government as an
example with the corporate transparency act then certainly people are going to be having more of an arms length
relationship it it's that seems to be happening with everything it seems to me
Phil that that we're especially with this act where where where the the reasoning behind it
is money laundering and terrorism it seems to me that
the you you have more the tail wagging the dog right it's it's the tail wagging
the dog an excuse for this is Terrorism and could it help sure I don't know how much the Patriot Act actually has helped
us with terrorism there were there's been several hearings on this showing that it didn't really help that much at
all in several examples um but it's a it's power be gets power and
so it's like well if we can do a better job a little bit in the FBI or or with the IRS or whatever it is then we're
going to go seek it but they're going to do it in a way that you know the ends
justify the means and they're going to trample on the bill of right so is it
don't we have a tail wagging the dog in this situation yeah I mean I I feel like there's I mean there's two two big
things with it I mean first of all you're absolutely right and I mean this is what people have to accept I mean
terrorism is always the it's that funny thing now you know 20 23 years later it's it's the catchall right like well
it's like the war of drugs was in the 90s right it's it's well we're fighting terrorism so just you if you ask
questions are you are you in favor of the terrorists like that's really what it boils down to and um
especially uh it's just especially become the case like hey're we're trying to fight terrorism and so I I agree it
is a tail wagging the dog but the thing that people have to like the government's not going to do it but the
thing that Americans have to accept is that part part of the price of Liberty is some some loss of the sense of
security right like we can have you you can the parent dilemma of do you lock
your kids up in a safe space all the time so that they never get injured or do you let them go outside and play and
they might scrape their knee or might get hurt uh like what what's the better what's what's the best thing to have and
uh As Americans we at least in our founding concept we adopted the idea that we would
pursue the risks associated with allowing people their freedoms and
protecting their privacy and the challenge is is that obviously
government bureaucracy is always going to try to expand Its Behavior and it's always going to try to make it easier to
do its own job um and and being able to collect information on everybody would definitely make it easier for them to do
some aspect of their job but the problem is is that uh it's it's almost uh I
would say almost counterproductive because if you're swimming in a sea of data then you don't necessarily know
what data is valuable and isn't and so the problem is is you collect information there's 32 million small
businesses in America who's reviewing all this data who is checking in on this private information well really the
truth is the information's sitting there waiting to be utilized when they need to and then the problem you've got like
Austin's talking about is being associated with somebody so the the thing that scares me is not only does it
break trust with our government and our government is treating us all as presumed criminals but it actually
breaks trust uh in in our entrepreneurial Endeavors because now I have to ask you if we're going into
business together and during our time of being in business together who are your personal Close Associates who do you
associate with because it's not enough for me to know that you're clean I now need to know the people you're associated with are clean because if at
some point they decide that your wife has who's very outspoken about a certain issue um they decide that she was a
beneficial owner in our company because you listened to Her counsel and now we're all Associated to whatever she's
seeing and doing so are spouses required to be placed on there as beneficial owners they can be it's it's all so this
is the problem the term beneficial owner first of all has no analog in US law so there's not anywhere that says like this
is the definition of beneficial owner uh the term actually comes from certain International laws that exist out there
but basically it's anybody that ex that owns 25% or more of the company or they
exercise substantial indirect control over the company but Define what substantial indirect control is if your
wife says don't buy this or says you should invest in that is that and you
listen to her is that substantial control it's indirect right yeah yeah
you know the issue on trust is really interesting because we're already in a society right now where the level of
trust in our institution is an all-time low right whether whether it's government education law uh
uh Etc right I mean the the the the big business you know our level is so low
with with with these institutions that now as we carry this it's almost like a spiral where as we move this to small
business and individuals um that level of trust is falling further and further and further
and you cannot hold up a democracy that way it's impossible right as you said I think it's a very good point you have to
have a level of trust for democracy to work right um Austin question for you on
this this seems to me that when you are putting this
information out as a small business owner to the
government you know here here's what the fifth I'm it's a fifth amendment question right the Fifth Amendment says
that you uh that you don't have to provide no person shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself is this providing are you
becoming a witness against yourself with your small business information as your as you're uh giving this to the
government at all I would say yes um from a legal
perspective that one's a little bit harder because the Constitution does say in a criminal proceeding and technically
there's no criminal proceeding yet which is why the fourth amendment is the one that covers it more closely that says
even when there's no criminal proceeding you can't come take my stuff um and so those two work together I think where
the Fourth Amendment says prior to there being anything criminal you can't just come take my stuff the Fifth Amendment
says once there is something criminal and you've charged me with something you can't compel me to be a witness um but
because of that little qualifier about in a criminal proceeding the courts usually treat
those two separately so for example they do allow me they do allow the IRS to force me to proactively send
my information to them um I'm kind of being a witness against myself in those situations you know I'm
I'm saying something I'm compelled under law to disclose things um but yes I think from a a perspective of a true
originalist intent constitutional look at the Constitution Bill of Rights I think the founders would be very
appalled by A system that just says just send it all in we just want all this
information we're Gathering it and we can use it against you later um but I do
think that they would have seen a strong connection between the two like you're
making but I think they would have found most of it sitting in the Fourth Amendment rather than the fifth um but
two and I just wanted to say quickly to one of the questions you said about a spouse being a beneficial owner this
term beneficial owner when it talks about exercising substantial control directly or indirectly over a business
so any of your executive level officers would be a beneficial owner but when it
say anyone that indirectly exercises substantial control over a company then
yeah that could be your spouse I think a lot of small business owners would be a spouse but even more troubling there's
there's two sides to this now too um there's one where I know everything and
I have to choose what I report um but there's a second where I'm a business owner but I don't know everything who's
my CEO sleeping with and who are they talking to because
that person could be exercising indirect control over the entity through the CEO the CEO to keep a romantic relationship
alive could be doing whatever this person tells them to um how do I know
that as a business owner to report that because the reason that the government wants that is they're saying look what happens
is they what they claim is Iran can buy oil tankers for example from the United
States because they can set up these shell entities we don't know who's involved and then they hire just some person that doesn't know anything but
there's someone else really telling them what to do and they go we want all this stuff reported so that we can figure out
how Iran's getting to be able to purchase a $25 million oil tinker
and and I I look at that and I go well there's a whole Bol load of issues with
that still because to your point about the TA waging the dog too is is Iran going to report any of
its beneficial owners to the government if if they're here to do something illegal they're not going to come in they're not going to care about a $500 a
day fine um that's only going to impact the law abiding citizens um but from the second side if
you're the business owner tasked with compliance and you don't report one of these indirect relationships that
somebody has that's controlling your entity um then what do you do now you're
just in trouble again because someone did something they didn't disclose so as a small business owner you have to start asking questions like who do you sleep
with who are you talking to um it's incredibly invasive to try and comply
and some people you know some I think government officials might roll eyes at that like oh we would never require that
they go no you're going to find a company that they were having some relationship on the side and that person
was controlling the company and you're going to come after him um as part of this and it will certainly happen and so
again these things cause all kinds of constitutional issues um that I think the founders were
very aware of they lived under the abuses of a king that could just demand whatever and just say give it to me they
they knew what that was like and they knew that in order to keep power from becoming uh tyrannical like a king you
had to put a check on what the government could take up front and you had to be able to place this level of
private Association and Liberty again depends on that communism China knows
that you have to have small pockets of community and Association China works very aggressively to break down pockets
of Association so even mlms are illegal in China because one of the things that mlms do that counter communism is they
form pockets of communities and communism can't have that it's a threat to Communism and so
in America when I watch these laws come in that are incredibly invasive that
almost require me to report on a neighbor um because now I'll get in
trouble it is it's absolutely breaking down this trust this Liberty and to me it's a very it's absolutely a precursor
to a far more tyrannical type of government coming in because we no longer trust when we no longer trust
each other we ask the government to solve our problems um and if we can make
us all reporters on each other where we're now mandatory reporters of everybody and everything um Liberty's
gone at that point it doesn't exist yeah and you can just see you know
eventually pretty quickly actually you can see a lot of companies saying okay yeah we're interested in this here's a
contract that we're going to look at and here's a a survey uh questionnaire that we want you to fill out as well that's
going to have all these questions that you're talking about right now right we need you to include all these things so
that we can make a a clear judgment on whether or not you're somebody that we're going to want to pursue doing business with yeah and and and then
you're also sharing a lot of information there you would have you'd be sharing that with other businesses because you
who who wants the liability who's going to want the liability of of getting involved with someone who's going to be in trouble and
how that maybe your information is going to be uh included you talk about you
know let's say for example that you're going to have your business information your personal information shared with
International or you know other countries and their their intelligence agencies and law enforcement
agencies well does that incl the people you do business with why not right
wouldn't that all of a sudden you're you're creating a chain a train of information that says here is this
person and here's everybody that they do business with and and we have their
information also here is the whole thing right y yeah yeah I mean you also have
the fact that uh I mean you also have the very real fact that this is to some
extent whether intentional Ally or not is discouraging entrepreneurs from existing
because just complying with this uh the nsba who did the original lawsuit in
Alabama they uh they have over 5,000 business owners in their in their
organization and they estimated that it was going to cost the average business $88,000 a year in their first year to
comply and then you would still have ongoing legal costs because it's not enough for you to figure out who your
beneficial owners are you you really need to review with an attorney is this person a beneficial owner and attorneys
have been wrong I've I've read several different things where attorneys have disagreed about things in the act and so
really it becomes up to the it comes down to the enforcement department defining its own terms and what what'll
end up happening I me think about if you're starting a small business you might only have a few thousand dollar period and you're starting something out
and now you're tasked with M like this massive amount of compliance requirements that's why a lot of States
like Utah have very very low cost barrier to entry to forming an LLC and to getting a business started because it
helps encourage people to be entrepreneurs but when you're looking at this type of compliance costs you're
going to see a consolidation of wealth you're going to see a consolidation of the marketplace because the barrier to
entry just got higher and more difficult and it has to be managed there's more required bureaucracy in your business
now in order to run a business yeah um well let me ask you
guys are there any other major concerns that we haven't touched on here that that you that you see with the
CTA yeah I think there's um so one of the one of the things that that I look
at is it's called the corporate transparency act but it regulates small business is what could you say that again it's called the corporate
transparency act but it regulates small businesses and it specifically excludes
from its regulation any large corporation and a large corporation is an entity that makes 20 million or more
a year um five million sorry five million or more a year saying 20 because
the employees and has 20 or more employees so it's it's an and um so if
if your a business actually large enough to launder money and do things um you're
excluded from the that is really well are there other Provisions elsewhere in the law that cover those companies so
they they've said that in court filings as a justification they said well anyone that's exempt from this is regulated by
something else and some of the some of the places have some level of regulation
on them but I've asked accountants I've asked attorneys I've asked others I said do you know of any single law that has a
different regulation that comes over you reporting to the government or anything when you make five million or more a year and have 20 more employees and
everyone I've asked so far says I have no idea never heard of anything like that and so that that one definition you
know so for example once you're approved as a nonprofit Association you're exempt from this you don't have to comply with
the uh CTA anymore but you have to comply before you're Exempted and it usually takes 10 months to a year to get
the IRS approval for that um they do have some level of
reporting um that exists and some level of disclosure not to the same extent
that this exists there's just more financial as opposed to relationship based
um so yes they they say things like that but I look at that and I go we need to
look at this not also not as an island um because one of the when I look at the
um kind of what are the foundations of Liberty when we're talking about people or groups I believe there's two very
strong groups that have existed in society that really carry a lot of the Liberty mentality Liberty spirit with
them one is entrepreneurs they're very liberty-minded they go you know do their
own thing and another is homeschoolers and the homeschool groups tend to be very independent very much hey let us do
our thing and so it's interesting to watch as these types of regulations roll
out because we had the CTA get passed in 2021 come into effect in
2024 and Utah and this is something I think we'll start seeing in in more and
more places as well but suddenly Utah has a bill come up at the state level
that says hey homeschoolers we know there's a lot of you and sometimes you have trouble finding places to meet in
co-ops or different groups where you get together because of zoning laws so for example they may want to meet at an
office building or a church or whatever and zoning laws will say hey you can't have a school here so you can't be here
and so Utah says guess what we're going to offer protection to you so we will
let you operate as a homeschool co-op in any Zone that exists in the state
provided that you form an entity so if you form an
entity um we'll give you some nice protection we'll let you go anywhere you want in the state but you look at that
in connection you go well why do you have to form an entity to protection well if you again if you look
at the the accumulation suddenly if you want protection you want to be able to go and do your homeschool stuff wherever
now you have to create an entity and now you're disclosing everyone that's in charge of that to the federal government
um and then you put that in connection here in Utah as well and again I I know the Utah said because I'm here but I'm
sure this is similar in a lot of States um Utah passes a uh a scholarship where
they say the theory is that if you home school or private school you've saved the state money because your kids aren't in the school system and so in Utah I
think they say you save the state $9,500 a year so the state says we'll give you 8,000 of that to help you homeschool or
private school um so homeschoolers and private schoolers can apply to receive
$88,000 a year per child but in this bill that was passed four times it
specifically says that every single person that takes These funds is subject to um a Federal Regulation and they so
they Utah has created this direct tie to homeo schoolers and the federal government where the federal government can update this law sorry I said Federal
Regulation federal law it's the law of Congress um wow they can update it any
time and they have a direct link to regulate all homeschoolers and private schoolers in Utah who take this money
and again I I look at these things and I I say we need to be very aware of this as a people to recognize that piece by
piece part by part when you pass the corporate transparency act you say disclose all your associations and then
you say to the homeschoolers you can get protection if you create an entity these things work together and
the government I believe is very much looking at understanding connections among all the Liberty based people and
looking at how that works how it operates and they have to get into these private Realms and private groups and
most Liberty based things stay smaller they're not large companies Liberty is a
community like thing and and so this is a regulation on small community and that
to me is just one of the biggest takeaways in my mind is that the government's coming after the small
people to stop terrorism or money laundering but it's not the small people doing these things and those that are
money doing Monday laundering and terrorism they're not going to comply this is only something that they are
getting information on the law abiding citizens from yeah this is really interesting I mean that's not something I thought of so I I didn't even know
about it but you're so anyone doing 5 million or over is exempt from this if that's really where you're going to find
the money laundering yeah someone's money laundering whether it's drugs or
terrorism or anything arms or anything else that that that's not going to do anything if you're under $5 million you're gonna have to go out and find a
hundred different small companies to be able to do what you want to do so that's that's really interesting and the second
thing is the homeschooling that is interesting because you know they're going to come after homeschooling because it is growing in popularity very
very quickly they outside number one of again a government purview on to some
degree at least on on on education with the kids already um that's that's really very
interesting here's a question for either of you uh I know that this was in the in
the well let me ask you this first uh if either of you know this who brought this bill
forward to begin with I don't know the exact people the
history of it was it came uh kind of individually and it
wasn't it had mixed reception at the start when they tried to get it through the international communities had this
for a while and they've been pushing America to implement it um and so what
ended up happening was in 2020 it got added as part of the National Defense um
authorization Bill yes and so it was a small part of it it was a 1500 page Bill
alog together and I just wondering wondering who added it and who their
let's just call it their sponsors were right yeah I I don't know that answer is
to who the specific person was and then I know that this was in the courts for a while it was being I know they had
appealed it Etc is this still in the courts at all or is it just gone and done no there's there's still uh there's
a total of six cases that have been filed that I'm aware of so far um Alabama the Alabama case had a ruling at
the district level but the uh and the judge ruled that it was unconstitutional
but he only provided relief for the plaintiffs so if somebody's a part of the nsba then they have relief but
that's 5,000 out of 32 million right uh there are five other cases uh and my
guesses is that uh the district court sorry the district court will get appealed the one in Alabama um we have
our own case that we filed here in Utah this last Monday so not today but or
sorry not yesterday but the week before and there's several cases aimed at stopping it but nothing's had a other
than the Alabama case that there hasn't been a single ruling as as far as I'm aware yet do do you do you believe that
there's a chance that this ends up at the Supreme Court does it have do do the cases have
enough teeth yes um one of the great things that's happened is again from a liberty
perspective this is something I love to see is we talk about these cases they're
filed in different circuits court of appeals so they have different court of appeals they'll go through and chances
are decent based on the court system in America that there's different rulings that come out some win some lose um but
when you have when you have a situation if if we get through with some wins and
some losses the government can't enforce its law very well when half the country
is excluded and half of it's not and so in those cases when you have a circuit
split and multiple courts have ruled on it and the federal government appeals because they've lost something in one of
those um the Supreme Court has a very high obligation to step in on federal
laws like this to give the government the ability to have a yes or no type answer um we believe there's a lot of
potential at the Supreme Court right now and so it is again one of of the neat things about seeing all the different
people doing something because win or lose at The District Court win or lose at the appell court it's it's likely
creating a very strong scenario for the courts the Supreme Court to take it they don't like to take it just a one-off case that only one Court heard and only
one appell Court looked at they like to see both sides of the arguments they like to see how judges come down on it
before they take a case and so it's it's setting itself up nicely to get to the
Supreme Court I think the chances are decently high that it does okay uh well
great this has been very very informative I appreciate both of you guys talking about this Phil I know that
we've got an event I'm going to be attending it on August 17th I believe that's in Springville Utah is that
correct that's correct so we have a fundraiser that one of our sponsors crafter Market uh put on for us it is a
basically it's a full day event but you get to come and get uh rifle training with uh tactical Cowboy which is of the
top uh training schools here in Utah um is all all part of the ticket all proceeds go to our lawsuit so we filed a
lawsuit um in the T circuit here in Utah against this and we are seeking uh
relief for the entire American base um but we are also uh running on donor
dollars so we're trying to do everything we can to raise money so that we can take this all the way to the Supreme Court as necessary uh and so this
fundraiser was put on by one of our sponsors to help us raise funds so there will be tactical training there's a
dinner provided by all local farming producers here in Utah you get to meet
uh a bunch of big names you get Greg matson's going to be there but uh Marlo
Oaks is going to be there Utah's Treasurer which you probably are familiar with if you pay anything pay
any attention to um Central Bank digital currencies or the things that they're doing with dgs yeah yeah so he'll be
there we have a bunch of community leaders that are all going to be there so it's going to be a really fun event uh you can go to saveth
ranchers.com and that actually will let you get tickets and you can even enter our sweep Stakes for free just to help
us spread the word and there's everything there from you basically can get a quarter of a cow a bunch of
donations from our producers so like half a pig so if you want meat it's on
there awesome I'm very excited about it I'm actually bringing my wife who's also going to give the Tactical training uh
and uh it's uh it's a great deal so yeah fundraiser August 17th I'm going to put
the link here in the description box so you guys can go directly to that and see uh get a little bit more information on
that August 17th uh and of course to say the Ranchers but this applies to all small
businesses and it and it really is a very very important issue this transparency transparency as they try to
put something in in you know you know positive language here is really an encroachment on your privacy and and it
can affect our businesses uh in terms of what you're able to do who you're able to talk to who you're going to do
business with it's uh it's really very concerning so I hope that you guys definitely get involved if you are in in
the area Phil and Austin thank you so much for your time maybe we'll Circle back and talk a little bit more about
this down the road sounds good thank for having us
