	Introduction

Federal agencies often must collect information from the public to accomplish their missions. However valuable they are, though, federal information collection requirements can also impose a substantial paperwork burden on the public. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. The PRA of 1980 established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide central agency leadership and oversight of government-wide efforts to reduce unnecessary paperwork burden and improve the management of information resources. Scope of the PRA

The scope of the PRA is very broad, both in terms of the federal agencies that must comply with its requirements, and the types of information collection requirements and activities that are covered. The PRA requires agencies to justify any collection of information from the public by establishing the need and intended use of the information, estimating the burden that the collection will impose on respondents, and showing that the collection is the least burdensome way to gather the information. The burden-hour estimate for an information collection is a function of (1) the frequency of the information collection, (2) the estimated number of respondents, and (3) the amount of time that the agency estimates it takes each respondent to complete the collection. As discussed more fully later in this report, as of May 2009, the government-wide paperwork burden estimate is nearly 10 billion burden hours. Agencies must receive OIRA approval (signified by an OMB control number displayed on the information collection) for each information collection request before it is implemented, and those approvals must be renewed at least every three years. As discussed in more detail later in this report, failure to obtain OIRA approval for an active collection, or the lapse of that approval, represents a violation of the act, and triggers the PRA's public protection provision. Table 2 below shows the 10 largest IRS information collections in May 2009, which totaled nearly 6.6 billion burden hours—85.6% of the IRS estimate (which was about 7.7 million burden hours), and 66.4% of the government-wide estimate (which was more than 9.9 million burden hours). Therefore, if Congress and the public want a fuller picture of how the PRA's burden-reduction goals are being implemented, they will have to carefully review the information in OIRA's ICB reports...."

	The Cost of Paperwork

Although federal paperwork is most commonly measured in terms of burden hours, OIRA also collects information from federal agencies on the financial costs that are sometimes associated with information collection requirements—e.g., costs for equipment, supplies, information technology systems, and postage related to the collection of the information. 535 would, if enacted, amend the PRA to "provide for the suspension of fines under certain circumstances for first-time paperwork violations by small business concerns." Similar legislation was introduced but not enacted in the 110 th Congress ( H.R. 456 and S. 281 ), and was a provision in other legislation that was not enacted ( H.R. Several IGs have said that the PRA's requirements have affected their ability to conduct timely audits and investigations, and that the requirement for agency and OIRA approval compromises their independence. Reauthorization of OIRA

The PRA of 1995 authorized appropriations for OIRA to carry out the PRA's requirements through September 30, 2001. Since then, OIRA has been funded through OMB's general appropriation. Historically, the reauthorization of appropriations for OIRA has provided an opportunity for Congress to amend the PRA and, in so doing, to try and improve the act's implementation.
Federal agencies often collect information from the public to accomplish their missions, but those information collection requirements can also impose a substantial paperwork burden on the public. The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) (44 U.S.C. §§ 3501-3520) established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide central agency leadership and oversight of government-wide efforts to reduce unnecessary paperwork burden and improve the management of information resources. The PRA's scope is very broad, both in terms of the federal agencies that must comply with its requirements, and the types of information collection requirements and activities that are covered. The PRA requires agencies to justify any collection of information from the public by establishing the need and intended use of the information, estimating the burden that the collection will impose on respondents, and showing that the collection is the least burdensome way to gather the information. Agencies must receive OIRA approval for each information collection request (signified by an OMB control number displayed on collection) before it is implemented. Failure to obtain OIRA approval for an active collection, or the lapse of that approval, represents a violation of the PRA, and the public is not required to provide the requested information. As a result of OIRA initiatives in recent years, the number of reported violations of the act declined from more than 800 in FY1998 to 15 in FY2007.
Paperwork burden is most commonly estimated in terms of "burden hours," which is a function of (1) the frequency of an information collection, (2) the estimated number of respondents, and (3) the amount of time that the agency estimates it takes each respondent to complete the collection. As of May 2009, the government-wide estimate was about 9.9 billion burden hours, an increase of nearly 2 billion burden hours (25%) between 2004 and 2009. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) represents nearly 80% of the government-wide estimate (about 7.7 billion burden hours), and more than 85% of the IRS estimate is driven by 10 large information collections. If the total labor cost to complete federal paperwork is $40 per hour (including benefits and overhead), then the 9.9 billion burden hours cost providers nearly $400 billion. About $60 billion in other financial costs raises the total annual cost of federal paperwork to about $460 billion. However, the benefits associated with these collections may far exceed these costs.
Some inspectors general (IGs) and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) have expressed concerns that the PRA's commenting and review requirements affect their ability to conduct timely audits and investigations, and have proposed that they (like the Government Accountability Office) be exempted from the act's requirements.
The PRA of 1995 authorized appropriations for OIRA to carry out the PRA's requirements through September 30, 2001. Since then, OIRA has been funded through OMB's general appropriation. Historically, the reauthorization of appropriations for OIRA has provided an opportunity for Congress to amend the PRA and, in so doing, to try and improve the act's implementation. In the 111th Congress, the only proposed legislation to amend the PRA is H.R. 535, which would, if enacted, "provide for the suspension of fines under certain circumstances for first-time paperwork violations by small business concerns." Similar legislation was introduced but not enacted in the 110th Congress (H.R. 456 and S. 281).
This report will be updated as other information becomes available.