Feds losing paper chase
Congress wanted to know how well federal agencies are carrying out the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act, so the General Accounting Office wrote a 20page report. You don't have to read between the lines to learn that results are not good.
Congress wanted to know how well federal agencies are carrying out the 1995
Paperwork Reduction Act, so the General Accounting Office wrote a 20-page
report. You don't have to read between the lines to learn that results are
not good.
The act called for a 30 percent decrease by 1999 in the amount of paperwork
required by federal agencies and government regulations. Computers, online
transactions and automation were supposed to help. Instead, the hours Americans
spend filling out forms and filing documents for the federal government
increased by about 3 percent.
The paperwork burden grew by 233 million hours in 1999 alone — nearly
an extra hour for every American.
Most of the blame — 203 million hours' worth — goes to the Internal
Revenue Service, said Nancy Kingsbury, acting assistant comptroller general
at GAO.
IRS officials blame Congress for the increase. Laws such as the Taxpayer
Relief Act of 1997 and the Tax and Trade Relief Extension Act of 1998 require
more paperwork, they said.
Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.) blamed the Office of Management and Budget.
"The Paperwork Reduction Act requires OMB to be the...government's watchdog
on paperwork," he said, but OMB has "failed to push the [IRS] and other
agencies to cut existing paperwork burdens."
Charles Rossotti, IRS commissioner, said the tax agency has tried to
eliminate paperwork for millions of taxpayers by letting them file their
taxes electronically, he told the House Government Reform Committee's National
Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee.
By April 7, 30.7 million taxpayers had filed electronically.
Taxpayers are allowed to use credit cards, debit cards and electronic fund
transfers to pay their taxes, and the IRS is developing computerized W-4
forms to replace current forms, Rossotti said.
Even so, don't count on doing less paperwork, Kingsbury warned. IRS
officials told GAO they could not cut paperwork if Congress keeps passing
laws that require more information collection.
GAO found some agencies that have managed to turn back the paper tide,
however. From 1998 to 1999, the Agriculture Department trimmed 4.2 million
hours off its annual 72 million-hour paperwork load, and the Defense Department
cut 7.3 million hours from the 119 million hours it requires for filling
out forms, according to GAO calculations.
There has been some progress, but much more remains to be done, said
John Spotila, chief of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
"We know that information technology offers great potential for streamlining
paperwork, but we do not take full advantage of that potential," Spotila
said. OIRA hopes to do better by inviting members of industry, government
and interest groups to a public forum April 27 to suggest how to reduce
paperwork and deliver services better electronically