Well what do you know. Apparently regulations don’t always leave the consumer better off. In fact, the harm inflicted on the affected company is actually — hold on to your seats, folks — passed on to the customer.

You know about free checking, right? Banks have been allowing people to open and maintain checking accounts at no cost for quite a few years now. It’s a service widely utilized by consumers, whether they’re wealthy or making minimum wage.

Well, thanks to new regulations by the federal government on financial institutions, we may be looking at the end of free checking accounts. Get ready to be socked again.

Bank of America Corp. and other banks are preparing new fees on basic banking services as they try to replace revenue lost to regulatory rules, in a push that is expected to spell an end to free checking accounts for many Americans.

Free checking accounts, which have been widely available for more than a decade, have been a boon to middle-class consumers and attracted low-income customers to the banking system for the first time.

Customers will likely be required to pay new monthly maintenance fees on the most basic accounts that don’t generate a lot of activity. To avoid a fee, customers will have to maintain certain account balances or frequently use other banking services, such as credit and debit cards, automated teller machines and online accounts.

Here’s a simple lesson in regulatory impact for Washington: When you increase costs for a business, the business tends not to consider the costs a charitable expense and take the hit. No, the increased costs are based on to the consumer. You know, the American middle class. The people who are already suffering from the prolonged recession and high unemployment.

The same will be true when you implement carbon caps on the private sector. The increased costs for businesses won’t simply be forgotten. Instead, we the consumers of America will suffer. Just using what we have now, never mind actually improving our lives, will use up more income we already don’t have. We’ll be the ones to suffer — not some fatcat CEO in New York.