SMBs collectively spend billions filing taxes

4/20/2011

Entrepreneurs across the country spent billions of dollars and [billions of] man hours ensuring their companies were compliant with the government's tax programs, a new survey from IBM Global Business Services, IRS NHQ Office Research and Quantria Strategies indicates.

The survey polled more than 7,000 businesses that were ranked as either C corporations, S corporations or partnerships with less than $10 million worth of assets. Based on respondents' claims, the research found that companies spent 1.8 billion man hours to comply with the U.S. Federal Tax System and $16 billion hiring accountants to ensure their taxes were filed accurately.

"Many of our key findings meet our prior expectations regarding the pattern of burden for these taxpayers: an overwhelming proportion of the time burden is spent on recordkeeping; most money burden is spent on securing the help of paid professionals," explains the report.

It's worth noting that the government is trying to make filing taxes less time consuming - it recently repealed a provision of President Barack Obama's health care initiative that required companies to report each time they spent more than $600 with a contractor.