I\u2019ve got two words for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — and for the other state agencies that regulate small business.<\/p>\n
The two words are \u201cbeta testing.\u201d\u00a0 Or, in plain English, \u201ccustomer feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beta testing is the phase in software development when real customers are invited to test a product, to make sure the darn thing works and is comprehensible.\u00a0 Customer testing has probably been used for every product in modern history except New Coke.<\/p>\n
My concern is not the tax rate.\u00a0 That\u2019s determined by legislation.\u00a0\u00a0 My concern is how much pain and confusion the poor taxpayers suffer to figure out what they are supposed to do and how much they are supposed to pay\u00a0 — and, incidentally, whether they end up overpaying because they can\u2019t understand the instructions.<\/p>\n
Most people have never heard of a form called ES903A.\u00a0 But if you keep the books for a small business with employees, you may remember when the New Mexico Department of Labor sent you a new version of this form.\u00a0 There were two new columns on the right-hand side.\u00a0 In these columns you were supposed to report to the Department of Labor information about two different taxes that you paid to Tax and Rev.\u00a0 And even though you were reporting three taxes paid to two agencies on one form, you still had to pay the three taxes via three separate checks to the two agencies, and you had to continue filing the old forms.<\/p>\n
If you find it painful to read the above paragraph, imagine how you might have felt if you were the person who opened the envelope four years ago and had to figure this out.\u00a0 And the Department of Labor subsequently multiplied the confusion by changing its name to the Department of Workforce Solutions.\u00a0 \u201cSolutions,\u201d of all things.<\/p>\n
Consider this:<\/p>\n
If 10 state employees had to spend — let\u2019s say — 80 hours each (two full work weeks) working with some volunteer taxpayers, making sure a new tax or regulatory program worked and the instructions were clear and intelligible, that would be 800 hours well spent.<\/p>\n
If, on the other hand, suppose those state employees test the program and write the instructions to their own satisfaction but no one else\u2019s, and then launch it and require businesses to use it.\u00a0 Suppose those state employees are computer geeks who are very good at software but not so expert at communicating with human beings.<\/p>\n
If 20,000 small business owners, or their bookkeepers, have to waste 8 to 10 hours each trying to understand these forms, that\u2019s about 200,000 hours or 25,000 work days, wasted.\u00a0 Those hours are precious to small businesses.<\/p>\n
And more time will be wasted on the government side answering the flood of phone calls that will follow from all those confused business people.\u00a0 The state employees who answer the phone will probably not know where to transfer the calls because nobody will have bothered to set up that system.<\/p>\n
This is not the fault of the employees who did the work –that is, if they were instructed from higher up to do it fast and never told how to do it right.<\/p>\n
When small businesses protest that they are smothered with too many confusing regulations, this is the kind of thing they are talking about.\u00a0 Unfortunately, small business owners don\u2019t have much time to protest.\u00a0 They have to get back to the shop.<\/p>\n
Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2010; posted in 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve got two words for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department — and for the other state agencies that regulate small business. The two words are \u201cbeta testing.\u201d\u00a0 Or, in plain English, \u201ccustomer feedback.\u201d Beta testing is the phase … Continue reading