I use more than that as well, and you're right. My life got simpler when I switched to a regional accounting firm that specialized in smaller businesses.
I was simply trying to note that tax compliance is cheap enough that there's really no reason not to do it.
It's obnoxiously difficult to identify all of the taxes (especially state and local) that are relevant to your business, let alone to actually file and pay them (both of which can be harder than you'd think.)
Until there's an easy way to verify you're compliant, I don't think there's any viable option except to hire an accounting firm to ensure compliance. If you use standard accounting software (like quickbooks) and just want them to deal with filing and paying the taxes, the bill will be small.
One point I'd make to up and coming entrepreneurs: taxes aren't going to be the burden you fear. When you're growing your company you'll pay relatively little personal or corporate income tax.
Personal income tax will be relatively low because most entrepreneurs would rather reinvest in their business than buy a $20,000 watch.
Corporate will be relatively low because you won't be sitting on the cash, you'll be hiring people, spending on infrastructure or advertising and otherwise growing the business. This means your annual profits will be tiny.
The vast majority of the value you accrue will be in the business itself, and you won't have to pay on those gains until you liquidate.
Frankly, I think these discussions are bad for HN not because it's a bad idea to discuss politics or economics, but because nearly everybody on this site would get more value from an article about marketing, productivity, coding, testing, launching products, or any other topic that can actually help an entrepreneur build their business, today.
They're going up 3% on the amount over $250,000. It's $7500. If you didn't give him access to accounting software, he would be unable to detect the presence or absence of that money.
* That would be what I call "fair".*
When I made $50,000/yr, the primary value I got from the government was some physical safety, some education, and roads so I could go to work and buy things.
When I made $500,000/yr, the primary value I got from the government was protection of my assets, access to an educated labor pool, and roads so I could transport my goods, so my workers and customers could get to them.
The value received from government doesn't correlate perfectly to income, but it does correlate strongly, and as such is a reasonable approximation of a fair price.
We should look down upon those with below-average incomes as jerks who aren't working hard enough to pay their share.
This is possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. It's wrongheaded in so many ways that I hope you're a troll.
If you are not a troll you are a sociopath, and to be frank... your comments are so nonsensical that I doubt you'll ever have the "problem" of paying taxes that you fear.
I switched from a 3 button mouse to a magic mouse after using my wife's magic mouse. At first I thought it was weird, but after an hour or so I ordered myself one.
The biggest improvement is in scrolling. Momentum scrolling is addictive and useful.
Either way, they're paying Amazon out of those charges.
I'd be extremely surprised if Heroku actually spools up EC2 instances the moment you move the slider. It'd be a far more intelligent (and profitable) design to simply make sure there are sufficient resources to maintain the desired service levels with a buffer to deal with spikes in demand.
It should be relatively straightforward to provide service levels that are functionally identical to actually starting each "dyno" or "worker" with a greatly reduced cost structure.
Relying on customers overspending due to technical deficiency seems like a pretty poor business model.
I didn't mean to say they're relying on it, simply that it's adding to the bottom line and it would be greatly missed.
for-profit businesses do not have a generalized right to make their mistakes into others' obligations.
The OP never argued that he has the right to force the cost of his mistake onto Heroku. He's polling a community of business owners to see how they feel it should've been handled.
If I were Heroku management, I would've written the OP something like this:
(Valued Customer)-
I'm so sorry your accident created a nasty end of the month surprise. We understand, but we cannot forgive the whole amount because while they were not servicing requests, we incurred real costs keeping the dynos ready, willing, and able for you.
Since it's your first mistake of this sort, and you've been such a great customer, we're willing to reduce your total amount owed to $x.
We hope this helps,
Heroku
----
so yes, I think it's his own damned fault. But I also think it's a missed opportunity to create a happier customer.
If you switch to Firefox, you can install the PDF Plugin to have a non-retarded PDF experience without Acrobat.