non-accredited investing amount limitations question

[David Luu]

Not sure what's the best forum category to post here, so trying with investing basics. I saw a few posts on accredited, non-accredited investors on the forum in various categories.

It's not clear to me Googling around online looking at articles. Maybe I need to read the actual law definition, or maybe even that's still not clear.

For securities that are not registered, I get that you can only invest 5% of annual income if make less than around $100k (or the equivalent for net worth), and 10% if you make more than $100k (or the equivalent for net worth).

What's not clear to me though is whether that limitation is per investment of a non-registered security (from a firm offering it) for the year, or the total aggregate among all non-registered securities (across different firms) for the year, if one would like to invest in multiple types of non-registered securities. No one seems to mention anything on that.

And what issues arise if you accidentally over invest? Tax fine or tax audit? Or the trouble will go to the firm that is offering the investments and not the investor? Although tracking investment limit shouldn't be an issue for a single security, but more work/complicated when tracking across securities.