As a U.S. startup or small business, when you hire your first employee, among other things: (1) you start having to pay employer-related payroll taxes to federa

As a U.S. startup or small business, when you hire your first employee, among other things: (1) you start having to pay employer-related payroll taxes to federal, state and possibly local governments; (2) you need to hire a payroll service to handle the myriad reports to be filed with the taxing authorities; (3) you can get dinged for unemployment insurance claims (the point of this piece); (4) you need to take out a workers' comp insurance policy; (5) you are at risk for claims of wrongful discharge; (6) ditto for claims of sexual harassment; (7) ditto for claims of illegal discrimination; (8) you can face waiting-time penalties if you are slow to meet payroll; (9) you can face the so-called 100% penalty if you fail to remit withheld payroll taxes to the government; (10) you must pay at least a minimum wage for services rendered; (11) you must pay overtime for work in excess of 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week; (12) you must post some bureaucratic notices of workplace rights about your premises; (13) you may have to fund your employee's retirement along with your own; (14) you may have to pay for your employee's rehab if it is deemed a disability; (15) you can be vicariously liable for the acts of your employee that damage others (e.g., if he runs someone over while driving on company business); and (16) add here any of many other possible oddball consequences, such as possibly increasing your business license tax, requiring you to register as a foreign corporation (if you are such) in a state other than your state of domicile, etc. No doubt you can others. While there may good and valid reasons for each of these requirements under law, is it a wonder (when you consider their cumulative impact) that startups will typically have x reasons of their own "not to hire," at least early in the company's history?