>Factors that a court may consider when determining whether or not to pierce the corporate veil include the following
>[...]
>Was the corporation being used as a "façade" for dominant shareholder(s) personal dealings; alter ego theory;
Doing this allows them to effectively engage in the same bad behavior an individual can, but without the risk associated with a single individual doing all of those things themselves. It also may allow them to scale better too. :/
But I think the Feds are pretty good at building cases. Since it's a crime to lie to a federal investigator, all they have to do is find some fact they can prove about you that you'd be likely to lie about, and get you to lie. (Technically the lie has to be material to the investigation, but in practice any vaguely related lie seems to do.) Apparently it's often not that hard to do; they're trained to exploit the psychology of the situation to their advantage.
And once you've lied, they have something on you, and they can use that as leverage to get more.
Reality doesn't fly out the window just because they want something to be true.
I kind of agree with Plato that a society with too many laws ends up becoming tyrannical because it's impossible for the average person to keep up with them all. Also, in our modern society every wrong thing you do follows you around forever, and our bureaucracies tend to be Kafkaesque (also due to stupidity rather than malice). While I do not agree with the trope that 'most people commit three felonies a day', simplicity and clarity would be a good foundation for better civics education.
Why can't we have our own personal corporations, which can stiff our creditors, cheat customers, etc etc with impunity? Surely all the social benefits of allowing this behavior from groups would only multiply if these liberties extended to individuals as well.