It’s an up front $100k though. It’s also a gamble in the other direction that the person stays the whole three years, which definitely isn’t guaranteed.

As to your point about mom and pop shops wanting to bring over family, that’s not what H1-B visas are for. There are other ways to come to the US and naturalize without an H1-B visa.

Small companies don’t currently bring people on with H1-B visas (pre the $100k tax), because it’s easier to bring over family and friends on other visa vehicles. They are iced out of that process, $100k tax or no.

H1-B is designed directly for big businesses to pull in top talent from overseas, but is being abused to pull in huge amounts of cheap labor. So adding fees and restrictions to that only impacts big businesses.