Since that is your standard, knowing a little more about your subject is unlikely to change your mind, but let me help you understand what I’m “whining” about.

What you may not know is that the failure to properly collect and account for an employee’s child support obligation makes it the employer’s personal obligation, and s/he can also be sued by any employee who is fired, for whom collection is handled, on a claim of retaliatory termination. At a minimum, the fired employee improves his/her chance of collecting unemployment insurance on the employer’s nickel.

Deadbeat parents, not surprisingly, tend to be irresponsible in other areas of their lives, including employment, so they lie, submit false paperwork to get out from under their obligations, and often quit when the state catches up to them or have to be fired for poor performance anyway. But once the state starts collection, that employer is at the state’s mercy for years to come.

Not that you would care, since it is “efficient” from the government’s standpoint, but I know one business owner who closed her restaurant more than eight years ago. She still has to respond to several demands per year by her state’s child support office for proof that she correctly paid her former employees’ child support obligations, at the risk of having to pay them out of her own pocket if she cannot offer adequate proof. At the moment, the state is claiming she owes $11,000+, although once all the paperwork is in, that claim will hopefully be resolved. At one point the claim was over $40,000.

Her restaurant closed because after minimum wage laws were applied to her wait staff (who, with tips, already earned an average of over $45,000 a year), she could no longer run it profitably – nor could anyone else. The business whose sale was to have been her retirement was unsalable.

This former business owner has has to pay nearly $200 a month for EIGHT YEARS for a storage unit to store her payroll files (her restaurant averaged about 200 new hires/rehires per year for nearly 20 years), and spends several days a year of uncompensated time searching for and responding to these demands. But, as you say, “thats (sic) nothing.”

Since she was a business owner, I doubt you care at the devastation of her life and the many years of grueling work she put in that were lost, but you might have some sympathy for her former employees:

Ironically, her business was one that offered the best chance of employment to marginally capable people – prisoners on work-release, the developmentally delayed, high school drop-outs – who coincidentally are highly likely to be deadbeat parents (not all were dads). (She got lots of awards from various community groups for her willingness to hire the hard-to-place.) After selling the land and building (for 45% of what had been paid for them 20 years before), a facility that used to have a payroll of about 100 at any one time now employs five.

But, as you say, that’s nothing.

I’m really enjoying the stories now coming out of the Occupy X-City movement about logistical problems, sanitation concerns, theft of food supplies and donations, conflicts with neighbors, exiling of founders, etc., all the management problems businesses have to deal with – and the Occupants don’t even have to worry about doing it legally, reporting and paying taxes, and getting permits! Too bad there’s nobody around them who can help them turn this teachable moment into some real wisdom.

a) you write a check.

versus

b) government sends a bill (equivalent cost of you writing that check). People don’t pay. Government builds police system to pursue deadbeats. Govt hires people to do paperwork and police it. Courts handle judgments against deadbeat. Collection agencies are hired which then use shady tactic, fail to get the money and then over charge the government. Government has to police collection agencies. Etc. etc.

How is a) worse overall than b)? Choice A) seems infinitely more efficient and better choice overall.

Why do businesses collect sales tax? Maybe we should have the government bill people then collect it on the honor system and then throw people in jail if they don’t pay it?

You as the business owner are involved in the paying of child support simply cause you’re the source of the money. You’re the source of the money so yes you obviously have more to do with it than randomly selected people whos’ name starts with J. Of course you’re not to ‘blame’ for any of it, but having you deduct the money is the most efficient and effective way to handle the problem.

Compensating the business with a nominal fee seems reasonable. I’d say $5/month should cover it writing a check. I think it would be fair to charge the employee that $5. Or just consider it a part of doing business like reasonable people would.

Frankly you are whining about nothing. The fact that you might have to write one extra check once a month for probably 5-10% of the labor force… thats nothing.

Or they could just pay employers a modest fee to serve as collection agencies in the first place. There is no reason why the burden of serving as tax and child support collectors, which is a social need, should be foisted on one particular group within society, with everyone else getting a free ride. I recognize that it is EASIER to use business owners to do this job, but it is no more our job than it is the job of poeple who’s first name starts with a J, like you, Jim.

Have you considered hiring a CPA? Yes that costs money. But you can either do it yourself and complain on the interweb or… pay someone else to do it. I don’t expect you to be a tax expert, but you could try hiring one.

Could child support payment be handled differently? Maybe. How? Whats your alternative answer? WHy is writing a separate check once a month to divert to child support that much of a unbearable horror to you? I mean… its a check and a form. Nobody should have to do it. Everyone should just voluntarily pay their child support, but that doesn’t happen. Would you prefer that your tax dollars are used to police it and setup a new government bureau to do collections of child support? Or is having an employer write a check once a month a better all around solution? Whats your solution to the problem of deadbeat dads?? Find em and throw em in jails and spend our tax dollars on the police and prison cells? Whats the better answer?

I still don’t see how any of this adds up to anything more than filing out a few forms and wasting a few hours. Thats part of business. Thats part of adhering to rules and laws. SOme of those forms are annoying. Sometimes government isn’t fun to deal with. Sometimes its a pain as a business owner. OK. We can’t just privatize it all and we can’t abolish all the laws to keep you from having to file forms.

Bigger companies will always have a competitive edge over you. The Walmarts of the world aren’t going to beat you because they have better experts on government regulation. They will beat you cause they have lower prices due to large volume purchasing. You can blame the government but no matter what you can’t beat the Walmarts prices even if we got rid of all the government forms you spend a few hours dealing with.

I am 98% certain much of your comment was tongue-in-cheek, but there are plenty of folks who would say exactly the same thing with complete seriousness. I’m waiting on the 2012 elections to tell me how many, before deciding whether to allow my business to cease to exist.

I think we’re in agreement that where there are compelling safety issues (and the like) something like Yelp – which is known for hiding negative reviews of companies who advertise and the like – isn’t going to cut it.

I mean, you, as a business owner, spending your time learning employment law and making sure you get all of your i’s dotted and t’s crossed is incredibly inefficient. Much better, it seems, for all industries to be taken over by companies big enough to have paid experts who are up-to-date on employment law. Bigger companies can cope much easier with ever-shifting regulations, and it’s even easier for the largest companies, as they often have the power to help the government write the laws in ways that make it even easier on them.

For instance, there was that time that Mattel was selling toys made in China that had lead in them, and the government responded with a new regulation requiring all toys to be tested for lead in third-party labs. Mattel helped the government write that rule by showing them how much better it would be for Mattel to be able to test in their own labs, rather than independent labs.

On the other hand, if your business, AnnJo, is making toys, then it only makes sense that you should have to pay to have your products tested in third-party labs, despite the fact that you’ve never used lead in them (never been caught, I mean!) Meanwhile, are we supposed to just trust you that your company manufactures toy blocks with only wood and oil-based paint? I mean, the wood may be from an actual tree, and the paint has, of course, already been certified as lead-free when it was manufactured, but what part of all toys must be independently tested is hard to understand?

If you have a problem with the new rules, maybe you should consider selling out to a more responsible company who can afford to follow the rules, and one who recognizes how important they are. Like Mattel.

“What do you think the alternative for all those things are?”

Well, for one thing, why do I, just because I have a business, have to serve as a free collection service for the government on the taxes and child support my employees owe? Federal tax withholding did not come into being until more than 30 years after imposition of the income tax. And why the pretense that I as the employer pay any part of Social Security and Medicare. The employee effectively pays all of it, and should pay it as a bill like any other. I don’t pay my employees’ mortgage or car insurance, why their taxes or unemployment insurance? (OK, I know the reason is that it would create massively greater resistance to taxes if people understood what they were really paying, but since when is deception a valid basis for government policy?)

In some states, employers can buy private workers comp insurance. The government worker’s comp agency gets more money for more claims, whether true or fake. A private insurer would have an incentive that the state agency doesn’t to actually investigate claims and prosecute the fake ones. As it is now, an employee filing a fake claim may not win, but has nothing to lose, since there is virtually no chance the employee will be prosecuted for attempted fraud.

For decades, electrical wiring has been judged and certified as safe by a private entity (you know those UL stickers on things)? Companies like CarFax, Consumer Reports, Yelp, and many others exist in the spaces left by government for judging and certifying goods and services. In the absence of a lot of government regulations, there would be a huge market for private businesses to step up and provide that service, and they would all be far more motivated than government can possibly be to do it effectively.

Obviously, this would not work for every conceivable activity. I have no problem with licensing/testing of people providing specialized services like electrical, plumbing, medical, 18-wheeler driving, etc., that have grave safety and public health factors associated with them. But where licensing is done to restrict trade rather than for safety purposes, as in taxi licenses, it could go.

Anyway, the point is that there are many alternative solutions, many of which would actually accomplish the desired goals better as well as more directly, honestly and inexpensively.

As for overtime pay, if a domestic worker isn’t being allowed ample time off to pursue her own interests and relationships outside of work – if she’s basically signing her life over to her employer, at least temporarily – then of course she should be compensated accordingly. Her middle-class employers can choose between paying her overtime, using her services for just 40 hours a week (or less), or not hiring her at all. I fail to see why this is a problem.

Most of that sounds like a bit of paper work that may be an annoyance but is mostly rooted in very legitimate needs. It shouldn’t be enough to ruin a small business. I understand grumbling about it. Who likes to fill out forms? But I don’t see any of that ruining any business.

27 forms sounds like a lot. That could be streamlined probably. Have you complained to your local / state government or suggested an improvement? WHat are the 23 separate fees and taxes for exactly? But OK so you have to spend half an afternoon filling out forms (much of which I assume is redundant basic information like your address, name etc). It could be streamlined but at worst you waste some time doing busy work. Its done once and then you’re done.

Yes we do need to regulate food handling, we do need to make sure contractors are bonded, we have to do background checks on child care workers, we do need to make sure toxic materials are handled properly, we do need to send separate checks for child support, etc. What do you think the alternative for all those things are?

Not being able to smoke in a place of business is the result of society wanting that and not the government being mean to small businesses. If society was 90% smokers we would probably not have such a rule. Smokers are a minority and they get outvoted by nonsmokers who don’t like smoking. Thats democracy in action. Sometimes you get outvoted. I’m not allowed to drink whisky at work. Same basic principal. (I am an ex-smoker, so I know how it feels to be treated like a leper)

If an employee files a workers comp. claim then of course the business owner has to do stuff. Whats the alternative? If its an fake claim then thats a “crappy employee” caused problem, not a “government being mean to you” problem. Part of business is dealing with crappy employees who do stuff like filing unwarranted complaints.

What do you really think the alternative and better solution to all that stuff you list is?

MattJ. I would have thought you understood that striving to identify clearly and honestly the harmful consequences of a policy is not the same thing as arguing for 100% reversal of it or denying that it may have some desirable effects.

Then you thought correctly.

As for where I stand on the three items you mentioned:

I’m glad to see you hold a reasonable position on these three subjects. It’s good to see that you agree with Johanna that “Sweeping the problem under the rug by giving others free rein to exploit their desperation is not the solution.”

No free rein to exploit people through slavery, or allow children to be pulled from school and sent to the factories.

It’s good to know that there are some topics that OWS sympathizers and Tea Party sympathizers can agree on!

Any business that involves food handling, child care, home attendant care, etc., involves many additional layers.

An aside: When I went to public grade school in a poor Caribbean country, housewives near the school supplemented their incomes feeding lunch to school children by arrangement with their parents. (As I remember it, it was 25 cents for a plate of rice and beans and a glass of reconstituted dry milk but it was a lot better than the school lunch where the rice was always mush and there were only a few beans in the soupy sauce.) Anyone who tried to set up a little business like that here today would find it literally impossible. A home kitchen, no matter how clean, would never pass the health inspections, city zoning officers would descend in force, and the forms avalanche would bury the business effort before it could lift its head.

One of the forms you’d fill out for your new business is a New Hire report to the State; if it turns out your employee owes child support, you will have 13 – 16 additional forms and at least 12 payments to make during the year.

If your employee quits, even if he/she honestly reports it was a voluntary quit and not a lay-off, you will be filling out forms and calling the unemployment agency multiple times to make sure that your state experience rating is not erroneously charged for it as a lay-off. Miss any of those forms or calls, and you will be charged the higher rates, with no recourse.

If your employee claims a work-related injury, even if it is due to a condition that existed prior to your hire of him/her, or a bad weekend on the ski slopes, you will be devoting a significant part of your future for the next several years to dealing with that. Same with a claim of any form of discrimination.

Filing any one of these forms late can result in a penalty that is sometimes a multiple of the amount you’re late in paying. Filling them out wrong can have even graver consequences.

Subsequent years will involve almost the same number of forms. (If you keep the same employee through several years, you can reduce your forms volume by two per year.)

You will be required to post visibly in your establishment anywhere between five and 15 notices to customers or employees. Failure to do so can result in fines.

If your employees handle any toxic or dangerous products, even such commonplace items as household cleaners, bleach, ladders, or ergonomically poor office chairs, you may be required to take training classes, maintain special records, obtain inspections, or otherwise devote sustained time and attention to these matters.

Chances are good you will not be allowed to smoke in your own office or allow your employees, customers or clients to do so.

I could go on for pages.

Now all of these rules and regulations offer some benefits, so whether they are just burdensome but necessary or “overburdensome” depends on what tradeoffs you are willing to accept. If the goal for instance is perfect safety at any cost, then of course they are not overburdensome; in fact, they are not burdensome enough, since we still suffer workplace injuries and deaths. By that standard, we should keep regulating until there are no more workplace injuries. Of course, that will only happen when there are no more workplaces, but so be it.

As Johanna says, it is better for a business not to exist at all, and for a worker to have no job at all, than a job that fails to meet some desired standard. I actually agree.

The only question becomes, what is the standard? Johanna might (I only say “might” – I don’t know) say that unless a domestic worker gets paid minimum wage for all hours “on the job” including the time she’s “on call” such as during the night when the kids are asleep but might wake up and need a glass of water, and overtime for any such hours over 40 a week, and a reasonable number of breaks at regular intervals during the day when the worker is truly free of any demands, then it’s better if that worker doesn’t work, even if the available option is living in a public housing project collecting welfare. To me, that seems like a lose-lose situation.

The following may come across as accusational but I don’t mean it that way. I’m sincerely curious cause I don’t understand how this adds up…

Raising taxes 20% so they are now 1.8% means they went from 1.5% to 1.8%.. right? (or do I misunderstand) What kind of business are you in that your profit margin is significantly impacted by 0.3% of gross?? Is it feasible to raise prices 0.3%? How much has the recession impacted your sales? It would seem to me that the recession would generally have a much more signification impact on a business than such government regulations.