Assembling property for development. Concealing ownership of certain assets. Keeping your name from appearing in certain public records.

>Assembling property for development

This is definitely the most common reason for anonymous LLCs. For elaboration, think about buying up a ton of crappy property in a specific area. Doing it all under a single LLC with traceable names can cause property agents and banks to notice and raise prices / hold out on existing property that the developer may need.

It predates the LLC era, but this was how Disney bought up its huge swaths of land just outside Orlando to build Walt Disney World.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disney-shell-companies...

An easy one is: anything legal or illegal that would harm the owners reputation to be associated with.

Rich guy heads his local anti-drug crusading non-profit in Seattle or Salt Lake City. Also co-owns an anon LLC that is in the booming marijuana business.

Tax fraud and organised crime aside I'd say getting into the online music business. Staying anonymous for as long as possible today probably is the only way to establish an independent business in that industry without having to pay extortionate licence fees to the big four.

Disagree regarding the music business. They don't care if the owners are anonymous, they'll go right after the LLC itself and destroy it as necessary, while trying to pierce the anonymous aspect any way they can. Having an anon-ownership list won't protect the company from their licensing fees at all.