[pjkundert]

It astonishes me that so few HNers have (evidently) tried to start businesses. The staggering regulatory, tax and accounting burden that small business are groaning under is incomprehensible, unless you've experienced it.

I'm a Canadian, in a super-simple business (no payroll, no significant hardward stock) and we are forced to spend double-digit percentages of our gross income just to stay "compliant" with regulations -- and our big, national-level accounting firm is still not certain that we are!

In my opinion, any small business owner that thinks they are complying with regulations is probably deluding themselves; one false step, one "investigation" by tax or regulatory authorities (of, if they get on the bad side of someone in these offices) -- and they are toast.

So, before you go about chanting in the streets for more regulation, think about who you're hurting.

Any company with an office tower, with several floors of lawyers and accountants is laughing at you, for being a "useful idiot", working on their behalf. They can trivially comply.

Because, remember -- they wrote the legislation. Your esteemed member of parliament or congress person doesn't write legislation. At best, they might adjust it after it gets dropped on their desk. The lobbyist, and the corporate lawyers and accountants who oversee them, wrote it, and gave it to your legislator.

[jdavis703]

I'm an HNer who has started and sold my own businesses, I have family who have founded & operated businesses in highly regulated areas, and I'm an investor in startups. I have also been audited by the IRS (the US tax service). One wrong step does not mean you're toast. It means you need to admit and fix your mistake and make sure it doesn't happen again.

I'm sure agencies such as the FAA or DOE might be more of a PITA to deal with. But that's because they're regulating functions that are literally life and death.

[pjkundert]

You sound very successful; unfortunately, most small businesses remain small. Year by year, the ever-increasing drain of time, energy and money expended to accomplish nothing of value (to the owner, their families who often work in the business, or to their clients) increases.

Unless they quickly cross this "chasm of despair", it is inevitable that the small business owner will simply give up and close the business.

Soon, all you have left is dead-eyed, heartless corporate strip-miners, laying waste the landscape (see: modern industrial livestock production and processing, vs. local farmers and butchers). And they have a very limited risk of any viable competitors crossing the chasm.

There is one thing that could change this -- remove the "economies of scale" for compliance to all regulatory and tax requirements. This means: the amount it costs the company to comply is calculated to be in direct proportion to their gross revenue.

If it costs a small business 10% of their gross revenue to comply, but it costs Apple, Eli Lilly, Exxon, Walmart etc. only .1% of their gross revenue, then taxes would be levied/refunded to ensure that the regulatory burden is equitable.

You would be able see the big corporation's lobbyists lining up in Washington, DC from orbit, to get the regulatory burdens on small businesses reduced!