As more small businesses engage in international trade (especially via the internet), states and some local governments are beginning to bring the large company assistance programs down to the level of the entrepreneur. You should contact your state commerce department or chamber of commerce to find out what new programs your state and local governments may have for you.

We have seen recent examples from including smaller businesses in international trade missions to low cost state assistance in forming cooperative Foreign Sales Corporations to pool with other small businesses, to reduced paperwork requirements in a few southern states that makes technology development grants more assessable for the "little people."

You may also wish to consider shopping around for a different state of incorporation. If your business comes primarily from international activities (especially over the internet), the extra cost of setting up a company in a tax-free state like Nevada may be worth the extra cost when compared to the savings on state and local taxes.

While setting up an offshore company is still very expensive and fraught with heavy IRS penalties if not done precisely right, there are an increasing number of options that small businesses can use. For example, Bermuda has converted an old army base into a giant "server farm" to attract internet-based businesses to their island country. Bermuda has high speed connections to both Europe and the USA, no taxes of any kind that an internet or offshore company would pay, highly skilled natives who can maintain the server and banking relations for you, and many other "turnkey" types of packages that make it fairly easy and relatively low cost to set up and run an offshore company from Bermuda.