4 ms·
This is no joke. When I hired my business's first employee here in Kentucky, the crush of fees, rules and paperwork that came along with her were jaw-dropping.
by fivedogit 12y ago
This is no joke. When I hired my business's first employee here in Kentucky, the crush of fees, rules and paperwork that came along with her were jaw-dropping. All of a sudden, the government - especially the school board and local agencies - were mailing us with their hands out. Having that first employee triggered things like sales tax forms, quarterly filing requirements, payroll questionnaires, etc. I began to feel that that employee I hired (an office manager) spent 50% of her time trying to make sense of all the new requirements we had because she was hired.
That business eventually went south and now I know better. I will never hire anyone again until the money is flowing in the door at a speed I simply can't keep up with.
- CalRobert 12y agoHow does hiring someone in Kentucky become more difficult due to European Union VAT documentation rules?
- fivedogit 12y agoMy point is that increased business documentation rules, no matter the jurisdiction, do have a real impact on the ability of startups to take root and grow.
- rmc 12y agoConversely, no regulation tends to be literally Dickensian.
- nmcfarl 12y agoI for one am not against regulation, but rather the overhead of large amounts of required documentation. These are burdens that hit small companies the hardest. And the are burdens that are generally not imposed by the regulations passed by our representatives, but are rather imposed by the bureaucracies tasked with enforcing those regulations. Bureaucracies are pretty much about documentation, and most see little harm in more. And this mismatch of understanding slowly stifles small businesses. This is not a problem with regulations, it’s a problem with bureaucracies and empathy.
- paulhauggis 12y agoThe end result will be a few large companies and no smaller companies in the marketplace. Barrier to entry will also be difficult. Is less competition and more large companies what we really want?
- scribu 12y agoIt's probably not what citizens want, but I tend to believe that governments and the EU wouldn't mind, since I imagine larger companies are easier to identify and control.
- Silhouette 12y agoFortunately for those of us in the UK, the current administration has been making employing anyone such a business-hostile process that some of us have already decided not to take on our first employee as a direct result. It's sad, really. Literally everyone loses, except for our sanity.