On: I employed a California resident, so now I’m subject to its regulations

[vkou]

No, I mean doing business in 50 different states, or, as mentioned higher up in this thread, >50 different countries.

Any business that has ever tried to do something at that scale at any point in human history needed to deal with compliance in all of them. Just because Stripe or the Apple Store provides payment processing as a service doesn't mean that you can just shrug your shoulders, and claim that none of the other regional distinctions and local laws apply to you.

> Derisively sneering at anyone who doesn't want to do the "necessary work" or "behave" is a troll opinion, and not particularly rational.

Claiming that the law doesn't apply to you because you're a small business and you can't be bothered to follow it what isn't particularly rational, here. If you think this is an excessive burden, you should work to invest more power in the federal government, or in international unions like the EU.

You don't just get to do a run-around of sovereignty because you're a foreigner and it's a lot of work.

[telchior → vkou]

While I believe that the point about doing business in other countries is valid, we aren't talking about foreigners in this thread. We're talking about someone in state A that wants to do business in state B under the general assumption that they won't be blindsided by policies being vastly different between the two. I sympathize because I have been blindsided in that way before -- 3 years after making a decision, my accountant informed me that an obscure (federal, in this case) tax requirement existed that I didn't know about, hadn't known to ask about, had never heard about from a lawyer, the accountant or anyone else, and had absolutely massive fines associated with it.

Basically everything you've written is dripping with contempt for anyone who gets similarly blindsided, and you're making every effort to strawman and twist the message. Nobody, not me and not the guy writing this article, says that the law "doesn't apply" to us. Most people starting a business have a deep desire to follow the law as well as possible, because they don't want to run into future difficulties. But again, it's difficult to check all the boxes.

I wonder why you're so contemptuous, but it's kind of a moot point. Most people understand that the tax code complex, and understand that it would be better for small businesses if they were not so complex.