GAO says paperwork still piling up. (Up front: news, trends & analysis).A recent U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report on the Paperwork Reduction Act The Paper Reduction Act, officially the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-511, 94 Stat. 2812 (Dec. 11, 1980), codified in part at Subchapter I of Chapter 35 of Title 44 of the United States Code, through , is a United States federal law enacted in 1980 that (PRA PRA - PRAgmatics. The language used by COPS for specification of code generators. ["Metalanguages of the Compiler Production System COPS", J. Borowiec, in GI Fachgesprach "Compiler-Compiler", ed W. Henhapl, Tech Hochs Darmstadt 1978, pp. 122-159]. ) reveals a record increase in federal agencies' burden estimates. Victor S. Rezendes, GAO managing director for strategic issues, reported that as of September 30, 2002, federal agencies estimated that there were about 8.2 billion "burden hours" of paperwork government-wide--an 8 percent increase over 2001's 7.65 billion burden hours. Internal Revenue Service (IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. ) paperwork requirements accounted for about 6.7 billion burden hours, or 81 percent of this estimate. Rezendes said that the "federal paperwork estimate increased by about 570 million burden hours during fiscal year 2002--nearly double the previous record increase for a one-year period. IRS increased its paperwork estimate by about 330 million burden hours during fiscal year 2002. IRS increases were due largely to changes made to the tax code by Congress, most particularly changes made by the 2001 tax cuts, which alone added nearly 17 million hours to the burden associated with IRS reporting requirements. The Department of Transportation's estimate rose by about 165 million burden hours, an increase that the department said was attributable almost entirely to the "reintroduction and re-estimation of one information collection." Rezendes also identified 244 paperwork "violations"--information collections that take place without first undergoing PRA clearance at OMB--a more than 40 percent reduction in violations from the previous year, but still a cause for concern. John D. Graham John D. Graham (1886 – 1961) was a Russian-born American Modernist / figurative painter. He was born Ivan Gratianovitch Dombrowski in Kiev, Ukraine. He moved to New York in 1920. , administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB OMB abbr. Office of Management and Budget Noun 1. OMB - the executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget Office of Management and Budget ) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is an office of the United States Government that Congress established in the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act. OIRA is located within the Office of Management and Budget, which is an agency within the Executive Office of , said more than 2 billion burden hours have been reduced in his department. Graham attributed the progress to his office's aggressive enforcement of the PRA, as well as implementation of new technologies to reduce paperwork burdens. Paper violations also have declined, he said, because of OMB's implementation of a "zero-tolerance policy Noun 1. zero-tolerance policy - any policy that allows no exception; "a zero-tolerance policy toward pedophile priests" policy - a line of argument rationalizing the course of action of a government; "they debated the policy or impolicy of the proposed legislation" ." |
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