SBA CRITICIZES PAPERWORK BURDENS IMPLICIT IN SECTION 6050M.

This is in response to your Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding Information Returns Relating to Persons receiving Contracts from Federal Executive Agencies as provided to the Federal Register and published on July 29, 1988.

The Small Business Administration, Office of Procurement Assistance offers the following comments:

The collection of taxpayer identification numbers by Federal Executive Agencies and the furnishing of these numbers along with other information required by Section 1.6050M-1(a) through (5) creates paperwork burden problems for contractors and the agencies. We believe consideration should be given to increasing the dollar threshold above $25,000 for information reporting requirements to ease the paperwork burden on contractors and Federal Executive Agencies and still meet the needs of the Internal Revenue Service in fulfilling the purposes of the Law.

Section 1.6050M-1(a)(6) would require "Federal Executive Agencies to report any other information required by Forms 8596 and 8596A and their instructions or by any other administrative guidance issued by the Internal Revenue Service (such as a revenue procedure)." We believe that a description of the information required by the Forms should be made available for review. Further, it is our opinion that the portion of 1.6050-1(a)(6) referring to "any other administrative guidance" is too vague and should be set forth in detail, as is the case in Section 1.6050-1(a) 1 through (5), to avoid any question of its validity should it be issued as a final rule without further opportunity for comments.

We question the necessity of requiring the head of a Federal Executive Agency or his or her delegate to provide a signed statement that the information provided by the agency for use by the Federal Procurement Data Center (FPDC) in making a return under the penalty of perjury to be true correct and complete. It is generally not possible for such an individual to sign such a statement because information reported to the FPDC as of a certain date is likely to be incomplete. This is so because many reports on contract actions are received much later than the cut-off date on the report to the FPDC.

Sincerely,