Federal Paperwork Just Keeps Growing
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Congress has discovered that it takes more than a law to hold down government
paperwork. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 called for annual reductions
in the amount of information Americans must send to the federal government.
But the forms just kept mounting.
The problem has been that although the act passed unanimously, Congress
just kept passing more laws requiring more forms, reports, questionnaires,
permits and licenses.
- For example, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 added about 60 million
hours of work, 18 new tax forms and revisions of 230 existing IRS forms.
- The Office of Management and Budget -- which must approve requests
from federal agencies to collect more data -- now reviews between 3,000
and 5,000 such requests annually.
- OMB says the government requires the public to spend about 7 billion
hours a year filling out government forms, 80 percent of which originates
in the Internal Revenue Service -- up from an estimated 1.5 billion hours
in 1980.
- The 1995 act called for a 10 percent reduction in the number of hours
it would take the public to fill out government forms in fiscal 1996, another
10 percent in 1997, and a 5 percent reduction in 1998.
Some Capitol Hill politicians are threatening to cut next year's budget
for the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Analysis unless it comes
up with 5 percent reductions annually for fiscal years 1999 and 2000.
Source: Cindy Skrzycki, "Congress: Fewer Forms or Budgets Will Suffer,"
Washington Post, August 14, 1998.
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