Madam Speaker, corporations exist basically to allow individuals to channel their capital for the benefit of making profits. I think the corporation as we know it came into existence in the 1844 act in Britain, and the shareholders were granted limited liabilities in 1855. In 1866, the United States code declared that a corporation is a natural person.
The key thing that I want to focus on is the tax evasion and tax avoidance. Supreme courts around the world have ruled on the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion and identified that if there is any transaction in the process followed by an individual or a corporation that does not have any impact other than to reduce or eliminate tax, the transaction can be declared null and void.
Coming back to the corporations here, why should the public not be aware of individuals who are investing money into corporations, including their citizenship being known? It is not the fundamental right of any individual that he or she can be a shareholder. It is a privilege offered by the states through various acts, so why should the public not be aware of individuals who are the shareholders, including their citizenship—