As an entrepreneur who can start his business in many countries around the world, I'm wondering why on earth, literally, I would want to start another one in the U.S.
I don't go into business to fill out paperwork and keep track of ridiculous crap like this. I go into business to generate revenue and make the lives of my customers and others around me better. This kind of law makes my life worse. Perhaps they want fewer businesses to compete with their big corporate donors.
This year, on the IRS tax form, where it says, "I attest under penalty of law that this information is true and correct [or whatever]." Well.. I can't actually sign that because it's impossible for me to know what I can deduct, what I can't, what I should report, etc... If the IRS wants my money, let them come and get it. I just refuse to put up with this crap anymore. It's absurd.
I'm wondering why on earth, literally, I would want to start another one in the U.S.
The US is still in the top 10 list of countries with the fewest headaches for starting a business. In addition, it's the biggest market for almost everything. If you want to sell in the US (which you almost certainly do) you'll have to establish a business entity there, anyway.
The EU isn't really a single market. While Amazon.com, Yahoo, Google, MS and others were able to start with a single product or service for the entire country, they each have many multiple offerings in various EU countries.
You can't just make a quality OS or a website in English and start selling all over Europe. You can do that in the US and be a market leader in every state.
That's not actually true. It's [arguably] a single market, but it's not a single currency - large parts of the EU do not use the Euro (Britain, Sweden, Denmark and all of the newer entrants to name a few - it's only I use by 16 of the 27 member states).
Bingo. I spoke with an entrepreneur at PyCon who started his company in Singapore, not only because of the IRS, but because Singapore is happy to give a visa to anyone in the world he wants to hire.
I don't think the calculation for "economic freedom" works the same for HN-ers. All of the places above the US have either significant political problems (China, Singapore) or are much worse for startups.
I would gladly move out of the US, if there was someplace significantly better. There isn't right now.
Regardless of what you call yourself on the Internet, someone's going to want to tax you. Sometimes I wish I could just move "online" and not have to worry about issues like borders, countries, taxes, and governments, paying for services as I need them and incurring no burden on anyone that I don't pay for directly. Until that becomes possible I'll just do the best job possible to be accurate and honest with my finances. Alas, bridges to nowhere have to be funded somehow.
Edit: Not to mention that any country that the Internet's light pipes run through will want to control those pipes, pass laws limiting what can be done with them, etc.
Infrastructure costs have to be paid somehow. Though a lot of the money is squandered on crap like 'bridges to nowhere,' there are other more deserving projects that languish (like maintaining our current bridges/infrastructure).
The economic freedom of the world reports by the Fraiser institute provide rankings based on things like costs of tax compliance, respect for contracts, legal systems, etc.
I think this is a one-sided argument: So you want to make money and make the lives of your customers better, and to do that you feel free take advantage of the functions of society around you but feel no need to contribute to the running of those functions....
If government really is a net detriment to your business, why don't you move to a place that has no functioning government (like Somalia) and see how good it is to run a business there.
The opposite of the U.S. is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a society that rewards creativity, pragmatism, and the entrepreneurial spirit by making it as easy as possible to run a business.
Laws like this do the opposite. They add resistance to independence. There will be people who say, "All this paperwork is a nightmare. It's easier to keep my day job." And they'll make more money in the short term, so this law is counter productive in a capitalist economy.
If capitalism is what made America great, then laws like this are making America not great. The politicians are making lives more difficult for everyone else and that means the business people who make this country great, or have for quite some time, will simply leave.
In a world of free trade, we -- individuals -- are free to do business anywhere. I can easily go to Canada and that's what will start happening if America continues to display this kind of arrogance within the leadership.
Well, for now. If there are people who use the economy as a basis to keep immigrants from flooding in, just imagine the reaction if citizens start flooding out.
In all fairness, the "[or whatever]" you said above includes "to the best of my knowledge". So you can sign it unless you are aware that something is incorrect.
From my own past experience of being a business, and of working with businesses, this is largely-unjustified alarmism. You already wanted to 1099 anyone you'd done that much aggregate business with, since it provided an extra form of documentation of your own (deductible!) expenses.
I don't go into business to fill out paperwork and keep track of ridiculous crap like this. I go into business to generate revenue and make the lives of my customers and others around me better. This kind of law makes my life worse. Perhaps they want fewer businesses to compete with their big corporate donors.
This year, on the IRS tax form, where it says, "I attest under penalty of law that this information is true and correct [or whatever]." Well.. I can't actually sign that because it's impossible for me to know what I can deduct, what I can't, what I should report, etc... If the IRS wants my money, let them come and get it. I just refuse to put up with this crap anymore. It's absurd.
This is why civilizations crumble.