Federal Agency: IRS Failed To Calculate Obamacare Paperwork Burden on Small Businesses

Which it's required to do

The federal government's small-business advocate is taking aim at the healthcare reform law's insurance mandates.

The Office of Advocacy, an independent agency within the Small Business Administration, is calling out the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for failing to conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis in the crafting of the rules. The analysis is required under a 32-year-old law called the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires that agencies spell out how their regulation will impact small businesses in both hours and dollars.

That requirement, which was strengthened by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) of 1995, has not been followed in the rule-making process for the mandate for employers to provide insurance, according to Winslow Sargeant, the chief counsel for the advocacy office.