> the wealthy have made it too complicated to tax them effectively or even find out what they are doing with their assets

Complexity comes into play on the cost calculation. Wealthy people with complicated structures doing little revenue with few or no employees may find this law onerous. Most people, including the wealthy, will be done listing themselves, their spouse and a few outside investors.

I think you're mistaken. This is about anti-money-laundering, not tax.

They're one and the same. The purpose of money laundering is to pay the taxes on illegally acquired money so you can spend it legitimately. If the IRS wasn't going to come after you for tax fraud, I don't see the point in laundering. Just deposit that crap in the bank.

No, you are wrong.

The purpose of money laundering is to prevent government from getting too curious about where that money is coming from.

That’s what the parent is saying. In a nutshell by taxing money it becomes legitimate. The trick lies in not drawing any scrutiny on the business itself, I believe it is basically attempting to make the said business appear as ordinary as possible.