My wife is thinking about setting up her own "handyman" business. She is pretty good at small carpentry and plumbing jobs. And there is a shortage of skilled tradespeople in our town. She should find work for small jobs. And there are a few other people doing this work without qualifications.

My experience is that we can probably legally set up this business for less that $500. I can see that expense increasing if she buys business insurance. But we already have many of the tools.

So I am interested why Alaska requires a $10,000 fee to the government(s). It might be a worthy investigation to find out why, rather than assume this fee belongs to an overbearing government trying to maximize taxes.

And if that $10,000 fee is a bad law, then you--and others--should work to get it changed.

Having said that, I recognize that such changes are difficult to make. Again not because the government is overbearing, but because our 18th century democracy really cannot change laws the way we need to change laws in the 21st century. Our politicians have many things to deal with--and it's not hard to understand that reducing a handyman's fee to $500 just might not make their agenda.

But sometimes the civil service recognizes a bad law and decides not to enforce it. We have many laws still on the books that are non-performing.