Yesterday, I received a census form from the federal government for Colman Knight Advisory Group.  The form consisted of thirteen pages, indicating there are criminal penalties if it is not completed, making this a document I must take seriously.    Upon reviewing it, I noticed the instructions stated that each of the questions had a range of time to complete it.  When I added up the longest time for each question, it came to 34 hours to complete the census form!

First, let me assure you that Colman Knight is not so complicated that it required anywhere near that much time to complete.  Almost all of the information required by this form, I have to include on income tax returns, payroll tax returns and other filings to various government entities.  Therefore, for the government to send out a request to have its citizens duplicate the work that we already give the government, is sad and a tremendous waste.  It is also nonproductive and a burden in the middle of a recession!  So, although our government claims it is friendly to small businesses and trying to remove hurdles with one hand, it is saddling small businesses with relatively worthless work with the other hand!

The one question the government could not have found out was how much revenue we receive for assisting clients who are currently overseas.  All of the other questions were duplicates, so I can now add another burden that I have to perform because the government is not sophisticated enough to do it itself!  To make matters worse, there’s no incentive for them to figure out a way to make this easier on businesses.  The government sure talks a good game about helping small business, but it is the first to burden small businesses with silly tasks!