Position The National Association of Government Contractors supports paperwork reduction initiatives and regulatory reform efforts. NAGC encourages the federal government to streamline reporting requirements to help alleviate the undue burden on small businesses. Take Action Show your support with a Web Sticker.

One of the major challenges confronting small business is the complex and overwhelming nature of federal regulations. It has been estimated that small businesses experience a nearly 50 percent greater burden than large business counterparts.

Unnecessary and excessive federal regulations and paperwork burdens create disadvantages for small businesses. Often, small business owners do not have large staffs; the accounting, marketing, advocacy, personnel administration and other management activities are often the responsibility of the business owner.

Small businesses often struggle to understand, implement, and maintain the overwhelming paperwork demands of the federal government. Enhancing and fully implementing new e-commerce methods for contractors to conduct business will likely help small businesses achieve paperwork reduction and conduct business in a more timely fashion. Furthermore, it is critical that policies and related materials are represented consistently at regional offices.

The Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002 (SBPRA) requires a Task Force (chaired by the Office of Management and Budget and comprised of the Office of Advocacy and other federal agencies) to consider the federal paperwork burdens imposed on small business and to evaluate the feasibility of reducing those burdens. A draft of the report was published in the Federal Register on May 9, 2003. The Final Task Force report was sent to Congress June 27, 2003, along with a list of agency resources for small businesses and the point of contact at each agency for small business paperwork reduction inquiries.

On March 4, 2003, a public meeting to receive the views of small business representatives on the existing paperwork burden and the usefulness of burden relief strategies was held. Meeting participants commented on several aspects of paperwork relief, including establishing a single point of contact for paperwork issues within each agency, eliminating duplicative, redundant paperwork requirements, waiving penalties for first-time paperwork violations, and creating a catalogue of paperwork requirements broken down by industry.

The Task Force met again in 2004 to consider ways to improve the electronic dissemination of information collected by the Federal government, to develop an interactive Internet-based system to help small businesses better understand and comply with reporting requirements, and to seek better coordination of Federal and State reporting requirements. On February 9, 2004, a second public meeting to hear the opinions of small business representatives regarding these objectives was held.