Most of what a small business needs to know does not change from year to year, which is why the rest of this site is written as reference, not as news. These are the exceptions: moments when a threshold moved, a program opened or closed, or a requirement that had been theoretical started being enforced.
Older entries are kept. A note about a program that has since ended still explains how that kind of program works, and the dates make clear what it was written against.
What gets written up here
Three things qualify, and very little else does.
A threshold moved. A minimum wage step, a fee change, a size standard, an income limit on a program. These matter because they change who is eligible or what something costs, and because they are easy to miss — the change is announced once and then simply becomes the rule.
A program opened or closed. Grant windows, lending programs, certification routes. The opening is usually publicized and the closing rarely is, which is why a list of programs written a year ago is worse than no list.
A requirement started being enforced. Sometimes the rule did not change but the attention did. That is harder to source and more useful than either of the above, because it is the kind of thing businesses find out about from an inspector.
What does not get written up
Announcements without a consequence. A new portal that does the same thing as the old one, a renamed office, an initiative with no eligibility criteria yet. These fill the space where useful information should be, and a reference site that repeats them becomes another thing to filter.
Nor does anything that would date the reference pages. Where a change affects how something works, the reference page is updated and the note here explains what moved. The two are meant to be read together, with the reference carrying the durable part.
Reading these with the reference pages
Every entry links to the page that carries the standing explanation. A note about a minimum wage step links to the hiring and managing employees page, which sets out the whole set of employer obligations; a note about a funding program links to project-based funding, which explains what a grant actually attaches to.
That structure exists because the durable part and the dated part have different lifespans. The mechanism of a trader’s license has not changed in decades; the fee has changed several times. Both are worth writing down and they do not belong in the same paragraph.
Why a reference site keeps a journal at all
There is a tension in writing about requirements. A reference page is most useful when it describes the mechanism and least useful when it quotes a figure, because the mechanism lasts and the figure does not. But a business owner does need to know when a figure moved, and telling them on the reference page means dating it.
The split here resolves that. The reference pages carry the durable account and name the office that publishes the current number. These notes carry the dated part, with the date visible, and link back.
It has a second effect worth naming. A page that says “the minimum wage is X” is wrong within a year and goes on looking authoritative the whole time, which is worse than saying nothing. A page that says “Maryland sets a minimum on a legislated schedule, the Department of Labor publishes the current rate, and county rates can be higher” stays correct indefinitely and sends the reader to a source that is actually current.
Most published writing about small business requirements does the opposite, which is why so much of it is quietly out of date. Confirming a figure with the issuing office takes one call and is the only reliable method available to anyone.