As a result, there appear to be thousands and thousands of “agency forms,” of which the I.R.S.’s 1040 is but one example. “ Optional” forms, of which there appear to be about 150, are those that multiple federal agencies may use.Īgencies have great latitude to create their own forms, of course.
No one contacted at the “Forms Policy and Management Team” would say.īut a federal inventory of forms indicates there are about 350 “standard” forms, which are defined as those forms that more than one federal agency must use. Just how many standard or optional forms exist is something of a mystery. The SF152 regulates only what are known as “standard” or “optional” forms, a mere portion of the federal form universe. Pages long and requires agencies to answer 27 questions and provide a “supporting statement’’ to justify the need for a brand-new form. These days, that someone is likely to be a member of the “Forms Policy and Management Team” embedded inside at the United States General Services Administration, which processes all SF152s. Otherwise, these agencies will be issuing forms left, right and center.’’
“But that’s why you need someone to oversee the creation of forms. “I’m definitely unhappy about the proliferation of forms,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior economist in Of forms to document where infusions of cash are going. This year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus act, has given birth to oodles or an “Authorization Agreement for Preauthorized Payments,’’ which was devised by the Department of Treasury to. Other new forms are the product of technological change, such as Standard Form 5510, Many of the forms come courtesy of new laws and regulations, and many of them, individually, have their defenders. “The general trend over the years has been an expansion of total burden hours,’’Īgreed Tom Gavin, deputy associate director for Strategic Planning and Communications in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. But government officials are hard-pressed to deny the obvious. Some of the increase is attributable to changes in methodology. “I wish the stock market had done that.’’ Who oversaw reports on government bureaucracy as a former federal official. Cordray, a statistics professor at Vanderbilt University, “Jumping up to 10 billion in 20 years’’ is no small feat, said David S. That compares with roughly one billion hours spent on similar paperwork in 1981, which in hindsight looks to have been a refreshingly uncomplicated time. Last year, Americans spent nearly 10 billion hours filling out more than 8,000 different governmentįorms and other official requests for information tracked by the federal budget office. But in Washington, it has become a fixture asīureaucrats try to follow the dictates of legislation like the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980.ĭespite such legislation, the arrival of the Internet and the earnest nature of the SF152’s mission, neither it nor its gate-keeping counterparts have done much to slow the swelling tide of federal forms. New York does not have a counterpart for the SF152, and officials say they do not feel the same pressure to have a centralized mechanism to control the creation of forms. In other words, the SF152 is a federal form that begets other federal forms - a dispenser from which red tape first flows. Job of standing sentry over other federal forms.Īgencies that want to create, kill or amend federal forms often have to fill out an SF152, also known as a “Request for Clearance or Cancellation of a Standard or Optional Form,” or file another form just But for more than four decades, it has been assigned the Standard Form 152 is not a famous federal form like the Internal Revenue Service’s 1040.