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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Registering as a business in a state though is usually an activity that takes 15 minutes and around $100. If you are doing enough to have a few employees, paying an accountant type to do this for you is very cheap and quite easy.

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But that's exactly what OP is complaining about, they didn't register their business. If you have any presence in a state, including employees that are residents and working there, you should be on notice that you need to 1) tell the state that you're doing business in their state by registering your business (simply paying your employee is doing business!), 2) file a tax return from income derived in that state, and 3) adhere to the laws (including employment laws) of the state. That someone started a business and didn't know this is itself surprising because it implies that they didn't ever talk to an accountant or a lawyer but somehow had the wherewithal to hire an employee as a W2 employee.

Imagine the opposite: you set up your business out of state and employ California residents but don't follow any of their labor laws. You underpay them. You don't take out the appropriate amount of state taxes. You don't report their income to the state. You don't give them overtime pay. How is this not just a glaring problem?

Last I looked years ago, it was $800 per year in California. (It's $100 in the state I live in now, though.)

An out of state LLC registration in Texas is $750, plus you have to give them a credit card up front, so they can charge you $1 per name search on a web forum to ensure that your business doesn't conflict with any existing business. Though, they will refund that money if you end up registering. Mostly, this is to say that even in "business friendly" states like TX, registration isn't necessarily cheap or friendly by comparison.

Yeah most states will be more like $100, even $800 though... if we're on hacker news and probably talking about tech workers... it is still a tiny amount of overhead cost.

Doesn't the "overhead cost" entirely depend on the business size, scope, location, employees, etc.? $800 is a lot of overhead for many tech companies.

If you’re hiring a tech worker in California, $800 is likely a day or two of reasonable cost for that one employee.

Even a minimum wage employee working full time will cost that much in a week or two.

It really depends. If you want to try out a small side biz venture or hot dog stand, $800 is a lot of overheard.

I feel for people who are on the lower end of the income scale that that try to do basically anything is California's hostile business climate.

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