Evidence Piles Up Showing Wyoming’s Secretive LLC Filing Laws Being Used For Fraud

A county-level investigation shows that Wyoming’s secretive business filing laws are allowing out-of-state entities to fraudulently co-opt addresses. In Sheridan, an address is the legal registered place for nearly 17,000 businesses.

Leo Wolfson
April 23, 2024
9 min read

There’s a new spinoff on exploiting Wyoming’s trust laws that give business entities some of the nation’s strongest privacy rules, and this time it comes with a mix of limited liability corporation (LLC) filing laws.

Over the last few years, Fremont County Assessor Tara Berg said she’s been investigating an influx of out-of-state businesses filing with the state as LLCs to addresses in her county. Wyoming has some of the most lenient and private corporate business filing laws in the country and some of the lowest associated fees for LLCs at $65. ... Practices like these have sparked the term “cowboy cocktail” to describe the way people and corporations can spend and move their money with nearly complete secrecy.

{snip}

An out-of-state company may not transact business in Wyoming until it gets a certificate of authority from the Wyoming Secretary of State. Non-resident owners must appoint a registered agent with a physical address in Wyoming to comply with legal and state requirements.

But what happens when that business isn’t really conducting business in Wyoming and is potentially using that filing to hide information about itself from other state governments? … That’s the dilemma Berg has been concerned about.

{snip}

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.