The United States Of Paperwork
Peggy Noonan in the WSJ on the blizzard upon us:
No matter what level of life in which you operate, you are likely overwhelmed by forms, by a blizzard of regulations, rules, new laws. This is not new, it's just always getting worse. Priests are forced to be accountants now, and army officers, and dentists. The single most onerous part of ObamaCare is the tax change whereby spending $600 on goods or services will require a 1099 form. Economists will tell you of the financial cost of this, but I would argue that Paperwork Nation is utterly at odds with the American character.Because Americans weren't born to be accountants. It's not in our DNA! We're supposed to be building the Empire State Building. We were meant--to be romantic about it, and why not--to be a pioneer people, to push on, invent electricity, shoot the bear, bootleg the beer, write the novel, create, reform and modernize great industries. We weren't meant to be neat and tidy record keepers. We weren't meant to wear green eyeshades. We looked better in a coonskin cap!
There is I think a powerful rebellion against all this. It isn't a new rebellion--it was part of Goldwaterism, and Reaganism--but it's rising again.
For those who wonder why so many people have come to hate, or let me change it to profoundly dislike, "the elites," especially the political elite, here is one reason: It is because they have armies of accountants to do this work for them. Those in power institute the regulations and rules, and then hire people to protect them from the burdens and demands of their legislation. There is no congressman passing tax law who doesn't have staffers in his office taking care of his own financial life and who will not, when he moves down the street into the lobbying firm, have an army of accountants to protect him there.
Gregg still can't believe that he's going to have to 1099 Delta and Hertz. I have to hire the neighbor's kid to sort through a bunch of paperwork. Every time I think of it it makes me a little queasy. Paperwork is what we all do in lieu of actually producing something.
I think Noonan is absolutely right here, and the problem with the 1099s is not just the time and resources involved but the explicit Big Brother aspects of it.
jerry at October 9, 2010 11:06 PM
Now here is the question: I go to wally world and buy a 52 inch big screen TV -- do I have to give up my SSN and personal info to the 19 year old, looks like a druggy, tattooed sales clerk?
Identity thieves of the world unite!!!!
Jim P. at October 10, 2010 12:23 AM
Why not just go underground? Screw 'em!
mpetrie98 at October 10, 2010 2:29 AM
Be careful when you hire that neighbor's kid. I don't know what you pay him, but be sure it's not more than $599 in a year.
I once read - and have increasingly come to believe - that the main purpose of regulations is not to achieve the stated purpose, but to put people in a place where they can be caught disregarding them. That makes us ALL criminals, see.
gharkness at October 10, 2010 4:30 AM
That is the danger of too many laws. People don't get how it compromises their freedom, and they should.
Amy Alkon at October 10, 2010 5:30 AM
Make everyone a criminal, and we're finally all equal in the eyes of the government.
I'm not going to send a 1099 to Staples and CDW and Newegg, and HP, and so on. Period. Let them come get me. Three hots and a cot? Why not?
brian at October 10, 2010 7:59 AM
Couldnt one skirt this law by putting everything on one credit card?
Beacuse that way the only company you are ever giveing money to is technically the credit card company.
lujlp at October 10, 2010 9:53 AM
It saddens me how the most entrepreneurial country in the world has devolved into what seems to be one of the most bureaucratic & sluggish. Hopefully the expected massive defeat of the Leftist Idiotocracy on November 2nd will be the start of a change back in the right direction. Rest assured though that all voting for the Republicans will have to remain vigilant on them for many years/decades to come!
Robert W. (Vancouver) at October 10, 2010 9:59 AM
I've mentioned I'm Canadian a few times, so obviously these forms don't belong to me.
However, one thing I'm really, really interested in is knowing more about HMOs and the form filling requirements of them. I'm interested because in Canada, while we have something called "universal health care," a lot of extras aren't covered and we usually have what we call "group benefit insurance" to cover those extras (sounds like the same concept of the HMOs, if I'm correct, which I may not be).
I had to do this for my mom and I can tell you that the form filling for this group benefit insurance was enough to turn me into Linda Blair's head in 2 minutes flat. What's it like in the States? Just curious.
ie at October 10, 2010 10:54 AM
What I mean is that the forms don't affect me. Sorry.
ie at October 10, 2010 10:56 AM
I saw a T-shirt the other day that said, "Obama loves America the way OJ loved Nicole". Just uses a different weapon.
Steamer at October 10, 2010 12:31 PM
Noonan is absolutely correct here. I wish she had used the same keen insight before she decided to endorse Obama for president. What part of this horror did she not see coming at that time?
the wolf at October 10, 2010 12:59 PM
The original purpose of W2's and 1099's was to make taxes simpler for people. The company who has paid you for personal services gives you a total for your tax return.
Each business currently is deemed competent to keep track of its own books, to record honestly what it spent on expenses and equipment. The IRS prosecutes you if you cheat.
This new 1099 requirement satisfies a statist desire to controll all business transactions. The government reserves the right to compare the 1099's issued by your business (however small) against the income recorded by the business you bought something from. If they don't match, I expect the IRS to allow a business expense deduction to the buyer for only the lower number, and allocate extra taxible income to seller according to the higher number. Both sides will lose and pay more tax and penalties.
The government will also have a massive database of all business purchases and sales, as a nice side effect. This is like being under constant government audit. The costs of tracking the 1099's is just the tip of the iceberg. And, if you are big enough to be politically connected, you might be able to get a common-sense waiver from the law, as in all socialist tyrannies.
Andrew_M_Garland at October 10, 2010 1:03 PM
If it's any consolation, it's not just the US, the entire Western world seems to have been dragged downwards into a literally Kafka-esque nigthmarish hell of paperwork such that you can basically no longer even cross the street anymore without filling in at least several forms and providing several pieces of accompanying documentation.
I barely get to run my business anymore because almost all I seem to do every day is push paper around for the government in one way or another, or pay people to push paper. Every day it's something else, and I've watched it multiply before my eyes by a factor of around 100 since just 10 years ago in every single facet of life. Just as an example, I recently bought a small empty piece of land, and I stopped counting the number of pages of paperwork required at around 150, it was well over 200 pages of paperwork at the end of it all. WTF.
It's all about money, if you ask me. Politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers - all have to create artificial busywork for everyone so that we can be fooled into thinking they're doing something useful and are therefore justified in continuing to rape us of so much of our taxes etc. to subsidise them.
The upshot is that more efficient economies such as the Asian economies will continue to skyrocket. Oh wait, that's not an upshot.
Lobster at October 10, 2010 1:44 PM
Noonan is a pointless dweeb and I don't read her stuff.
Patrick at October 10, 2010 5:25 PM
Get rid of all taxes except sales tax. That would make things simpler for most people.
When I bought a house the first time, I couldn't believe how many pages I had to look at and sign or initial. Crazy!
KrisL at October 10, 2010 7:23 PM
When I bought a house the first time, I couldn't believe how many pages I had to look at and sign or initial. Crazy! - KrisL
When I bought my condo a few years ago the sale packet was over 800 pages. I got the paperwork at 4pm one day and was signing them escrow agents office the next morning at 8am and was "expected" to have reviewed them all. They don't really think you will review them all (I did), but you sign that you did.
The Former Banker at October 11, 2010 1:38 AM
And how did we get here?
By meekly submitting form after form, telling the agent it was OK to snow us under.
And it's not just taxes.
My current job is reviewing technical documents, some with Federal regulatory import, against the physical plant at Savannah River Site to make sure that when Engineering or other changes occur, we are still covered.
Lately, we've been pushed to include such gems as the color of pushbuttons to start and stop electric motors, supposedly because the operators are too stupid. "Start the transfer pump" becomes, "COMMAND HX-434101-WXS-HS-4348 (Green PB) to ON".
Have you heard the term, "useless precision"? We also allowed the computer people to present us with the raw level data for the level of a tank. Yes, we need to know that the level is 5.4340891 inches. That extra molecule - if was present, the instrument calibration is actually +/- .5 inch - is important!
But operators meekly accept these things.
Sadly, they don't notice that if the details are in the procedure, they can be replaced by any high-school graduate - who will not burden the company with medical expenses or that bothersome pension stuff.
Apathy and resignation: those are why your paperwork is thick, and your wallet really is thinner because of useless labor.
Radwaste at October 11, 2010 2:23 AM
Print them out and mail them in. Saving teh Post Office is a charitable deduction, right?
MarkD at October 11, 2010 7:21 AM
Former Banker - where in the hell are you living? Where I live, the Real Estate Agent and/or the Loan Officer are expected to go through all forms and explain them to you during the purchasing process. We still have too many, but the pack is only 20 or 30 pages, and only 10 or 15 signatures required.
WayneB at October 11, 2010 8:22 AM
...I hate paperwork. Government by desks works best when there are the minimal number of desks doing the minimal number of tasks, the larger it grows, the more it costs, and the more petty dictators we get trying to expand their powers, and the more difficult they are to fight within the systems that they themselves create.
Robert at October 11, 2010 5:06 PM
WayneB -- It is because it is a Condo. There was only maybe 100 pages that they had to go through with me. Maybe 20 signatures. The rest was exhibits. Plus, it was build in 3 phases and so there was the original condo doc and then 2 more which were similar but different. this - though I don't understand it -- is because under rare circumstances such the last building being destoryed and declared un-rebuildable that those units could be bought out and the second version re-instated. There is a lot of important stuff in the exhibits - like exactly what outside area (patio) is for my exclusive use. What insurance I am expected to care vs what is covered by the assoc.'s master policy. In the core documents that they go through you just initial that you received them, have reviewed them, understand them, and accept them.
The Former Banker at October 11, 2010 10:24 PM
You should see how much paper is involved in bidding on a government contract. Literally thousands of pages.
Cousin Dave at October 14, 2010 5:42 PM
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