Also last month, Qiu Xiaoping, a vice minister of human resources and social security, urged “democratic management” of private enterprises, saying that they should be jointly run by business owners and their employees.

Some of the government’s efforts stem from necessity. Beijing must find ways to pay for increasing ambitious social programs like universal health care. It is also trying to curb problems caused by business run amok, like pollution and poor treatment of workers, as well as years of companies dodging taxes.

But entrepreneurs say the pace of change in Chinese taxes — already among the world’s highest — gives them little time to prepare. For example, next year China will step up efforts to collect social-benefit payments and shift the way they are calculated, resulting in higher costs. Stricter social security tax collections could erode China’s corporate profits by 2.5 percent, according to Lu Ting, an economist at Nomura Securities in Hong Kong.

That could particularly hurt smaller companies, which tend to be privately owned and often have thin profit margins. Chinese officials have promised to cut overall taxes, but the details have been scant.

Beijing’s efforts to wean the economy from its dependence on borrowing have made it harder and more expensive for many private businesses to get money. At the same time, the state-owned enterprises have little problem getting new loans. Even Li Keqiang, China’s premier, recently acknowledged what he called the “hidden line” between public and private access to bank loans.

Some struggling entrepreneurs are doing what was once considered unthinkable: selling out to the state. So far this year, 46 private companies have agreed to sell shares to state-controlled firms, with more than half selling controlling stakes, according to the Shanghai Securities News, an official government newspaper. While the number is small considering the vast Chinese economy, it reverses a two-decade trend of state companies selling shares to private entrepreneurs.