Additional
Articles for July 2004 Issue
www.business.gov
For better or for worse, the entrepreneur or small business owner will
need to deal with federal, state, and local governments. Boy, have we
got the site for you. Spun off from the SBA (Small Business Administration)
site by SBA Administrator Hector Barreto, offers an extraordinary amount
of information about regulations, taxes, responsibilities toward employees,
and even how to do business with a huge variety of various government
agencies.
The very first link on the home page, State and Local Gateway, is a portal
which will take you to the most useful links for your state. Or as the
site describes it, “Quickly connect to the laws, regulations, tools,
resources, services and online transactions offered by your state and
local government.” It’s a handy compendium of necessary information.
Of course, the same material can be accessed at www.maine.gov,
a site which should be included in any Maine businessperson’s bookmark
collection.
Back at business.gov’s home page, the “Doing Business” link
is worth investigating. You may have thought treating your customers
right was a matter of courtesy and common sense. There’s more to
it than that. “The relationship a business builds with its customers
is the benchmark of its success. However, the creation of a mutually
beneficial relationship goes beyond offering products and services customers
want to purchase. Businesses must also respect
their customer’s
rights by abiding by consumer protection laws and other regulations that
ensure fair advertising, pricing, warranties, credit and collections.” (emphasis
ours—ed.). As they say, not knowing the law is not a defense.
So you might want to sign up for the BusinessLaw Newsletter. The come-on
sounds like an ad on a cereal box or an infomercial, “Be the first
to know about new hard-to-find tools and tips that save your business
time and money.”
Business.gov will also help you get a “Federal Employer Identification
Number (EIN)” or lead you to the Compliance Assistance Directory
which will “locate federal compliance assistance resources and
small business liaison contact information.” Elsewhere, you can
find information on using an “eTool” which “will help
small, lowhazard service or retail businesses implement an emergency
action plan, and comply with OSHA’s emergency standards.”
While most business sites have scads of information on starting a business,
this one offers assistance at the other end. “Getting Out of Business” cheerfully
proclaims. “If you’ve never given any serious thought to
exiting your business, now is the time. For sole proprietors, getting
out of business can be nearly as easy as quitting a job. For most other
small business structures, however, exiting is a multistep process that
can take from weeks to years depending on the size of the organization
and the reasons for exiting.”
We found the most intriguing aspect of business.gov to be the incredible
amount of information we didn’t even know we ought to know. For
example, you can get help “in determining if you need to complete
an I9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form for a worker. Some workers
require an I9 and others do not. The system will ask a series of questions
to make this determination. If an I9 Form is not required, no further
action will be required.”
There are also sections dealing with Business Development, International
Trade, Financial Assistance, Workplace Issues, Taxes, Buying and Selling,
Laws and Regulations, and Forms.
We frankly found the site a little scary, but forewarned can be very
useful indeed. Business.gov is worth a visit, if only to see your tax
dollars at work.
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