Regulatory Reform and Paperwork Reduction
Unnecessary and/or duplicative regulations disproportionately impact Small Businesses, leaving many operations struggling to survive.
Certain federal regulations may make it more difficult for Small Businesses to obtain financing to get started, sustain their operations, make payroll, and continue to grow and create good-paying jobs. By the numbers:
- The average Small-Business owner spends at least $11,700 annually dealing with regulations, and nearly one-in-three spends more than 80 hours each year dealing with federal regulation, according to NSBA and industry data.
- The Small-Business owner is the number one regulatory expert for most businesses, handling a bulk of federal regulatory compliance. Forty percent of small firms said they spend between 1-5 hours per week dealing with Small-Business regulations and compliance issues.
Relief from the massive federal regulatory burden can be achieved through proposals such as establishing a national regulatory budget and requiring a cost-benefit analysis of new regulations.
Working solutions
Accordingly, NSBA recommends that federal policymakers:
- Require agencies to consider indirect costs and detailed alternatives to minimize any significant adverse impact of regulations and compliance; • Require Regulatory Flexibility analyses as a prerequisite to issuing final federal rules; • Require increased economic analyses and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to enhance its oversight efforts;
- Require agencies use plain writing when revising or drafting new regulations;
- Allow for increased enforcement flexibility and the ability to grant common-sense exemptions for first-time offenders;
- Streamline paperwork, consolidate forms, and harmonize data and due dates;
- Perform and submit cost-benefit analysis on proposed regulations and paperwork; and
- Improve information collection by strengthening requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act that agencies’ chief information officers review and certify information collection requests, require OIRA to develop stricter approval criteria, and limit the number of information requests an agency can issue per year.