My spouse did business at a collector show in Illinois years ago. We filed some sales tax thing, as we collected sales tax (as we were told to do) and remitted it. Did that for... 2 years, IIRC, then didn't do that show again. We got letters threatening that we would be penalized if we didn't fill out the form and remit our collected tax. There was no option to say 'nothing'. I mean... we did one year - put 0. Then we stopped the business. Had multiple emails, physical letters, and hours on the phone being bounced around between places to say "we don't run the business any more - we're not operating". And... no one seemed to have a way to decidedly stop these. We'd get "OK" then... 6 months later got a letter saying "you owe $x and penalties for failing to file"... I was slightly concerned about driving through Illinois at some point, thinking they might have an arrest warrant out for one of us. It took 2 years of not getting these to finally believe we're not in their system any more. Similar story for New Jersey, but it wasn't quite as bad. Still required a lot of manual work.
Their medium value purchase system is a waste of time too - I work for a small business that does government contracts and you have to pay the government just for the pleasure of bidding for contracts.
Then every bid has it's own unique weird things, where often you are told who you are bidding against and sometimes even how much the government wants to pay!
The scorecards are often weird, will do things like ask you to write mini-essays with word limits where you get penalised for being over the word count, or where 20% of the bid points are based on a combination of diversity and impact on the local community/environment rather than on who will do the job best at the lowest price.
The entire process is completely broken, and has no reference to good/standard procurement processes in the private sector.
This blog post title would be better worded "small business owner is surprised by contract term he signed up for".
I mean, it does say it right there in black and white in the Supplier Contract that he signed up for ....
Section 3 CCS - Supplier contract, Reporting Period: "The Supplier must complete an MI Report and return it to CCS by the fifth Working Day of every month during the Term and thereafter until all transactions relating to any Buyer Contract have permanently ceased. If at any point there is a period of a month where no reportable transactions occur, then the Supplier must make a declaration to CCS confirming no business has been conducted, in place of data submission."
I know, to quote the author, "It can be hard running a small business.". But surely at least make an effort to read contracts you sign up to ?
Why doesn't it just default to "no purchase" if the user doesn't do anything? Logically you'd think this sort of system would only make you log in and do anything if there was anything to report.
Why was it designed the way described in the article to begin with?
Just an anecdote on UK local government tech incompetence: I received a ticket “Failing to comply with a prohibition on certain types of vehicle” from Hackney council. Initially I thought my car had been cloned as I haven’t driven for months, but either a person or an AI had misread my car number plate. It was all just such a waste of time, especially navigating the Ai designed to annoy you into paying.
Addendum: The really annoying part was when the AI asked me for my ticket number, then asked me for the two digit contravention code.
First, surely they know the contravention code because they gave me the ticket?!
Second, the two digit contravention code was actually a part of a three digit alphanumeric code found in this sentence "52m Failing to comply with a prohibition".
So much UK govt bureaucracy could be removed. Like tax returns - they have the data already, just send me a bill, and let me query it if I disagree (like it works in other European countries). Or Making Tax Digital, which incredibly is worse than the previous system. Or VAT registration/returns which my partner has to do, which overlap with MTD and acts like a kind of second tax system.
"The system is working as intended".
I once attended an official seminar given by the government procurement department, to an audience of (mostly) government department people with purchase authority. The subject of which was how to construct your invitations to tender such that only the largest 3-4 suppliers could possibly respond. "Solves the problem of having to consider 20-30 suppliers and review their submissions".
I'm so glad that was early on in my career (as a vendor).
Eh, I was expecting something far worse from the title.
Once a month, an email reminds you to click on a provided link, log in (via saved credentials, one assumes?) and click a single button? I get that it's small frustration, but I suspect there are far more egregious administration inefficiencies in the world of government than this.
(You should try living/working in Germany ;) )
Also to note, the title is a vast overstatement, but I guess "The monthly reporting requirements of the UK Government's Low Value Purchase System is a very minor waste of time, on some occasions" isn't quite so catchy.
in a way i like the system in china. they simply force you to use their software to print invoices or receipts on government supplied numbered invoice paper, which automatically reports every sale. if there is no sale you don't need to do anything, because it's practically not possible to make a sale without printing a receipt and have it reported.
for end consumer sales for a while the receipt paper had a scratch field where you could win something. this was to encourage consumers to demand the receipt.
they obviously didn't trust you to self report accurately, but this also reduces the friction, because i don't even need to bother making any reports. i don't think my accountant needs to do anything either. they have access to the same system and probably just verify that i didn't misfile or forget something. of course apart from the printed receipts everything is digital.
I work in UK Government and the problem is that procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors. The rules are much more flexible for low value tenders <£30k but it is a very exclusionary system.
Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procurement teams to change their processes, but it is mostly dictated by national legislation.
I think allowing mayoral authorities to flex their procurement systems for innovative solutions would be a good testing ground. The whole point of devolution is to allow areas to spend money locally how they see fit and it can become a bit of a laboratory for new, risky ideas that - if they pay off - can be copied by other places.
Yes - the legislation itself needs ripped up and replaced with common sense procurement that follows industry norms.
As someone who bids for these contracts, my outsider view of the procurement process is that it seems to spends so much time and effort being fair and impartial, that it actually ends up:
* Giving too much information to suppliers (i.e. who else is bidding and how much the government will pay) - These things are never given in private sector contracts but you are often told with a public sector procurement process.
* Being a checkbox excercise, with scorecard criteria that can tip the balance that don't have anything to do with how well the company actually does the job.
* The procurement process itself can say to companies 'we are hard to deal with, uncooperative and don't really know what we want', which will obviously influence pricing. I've seen tender documents say silly things like you will be disqualified if you can't make an in-person meeting about the tender given 24 hours notice. Tender documents often contain 49 pages of waffle and almost zero specification of what is actually expected to be delivered (while this is common in the private sector too, it's much worse in the public sector in terms of how poorly defined tenders are).
* Often they have classic procurement footguns, like mandating cost down initiatives throughout the contract which everyone on the sales side knows means 'build in extra margin in years 1 & 2 to fake cost down to year 3'
* The process is so 'fair' that it ignores who will actually do the job for the best total value (mix of quality and cost). This is maybe a little subjective, but often you can end up with what appear to be bizarre awards from an outside perspective.
I get that the tax man needs to be paid, but what possible justification could there be for
1. demanding for this data monthly, rather than quarterly or yearly; and
2. demanding it via an annoying bespoke process rather than as an entry in the business's regular tax filing or some other pre-existing regular paperwork that small businesses are already submitting?
If you are on a framework, that gives prospective public sector buyers assurance that certain basic checks/ due-dilligence about your business has already been done.
So even if you have not made a sale to a public sector entity in recent times but are on a framework then makes sense to keep your details up-to-date...
Over 96% of registered small businesses sell NOTHING in a typical month. I hope the other 4% are raking it in large otherwise there's a real question about why any business even bothers!
> “But there's a wrinkle. What if I've sold nothing? Well, I still have to log on, wait for an MFA code to be send, click through, and report "No Business".
I think that's a waste of time.”
Meh. If you’re a business in the US and your products subject to sales tax, you must file even if you have no sales.
I made the mistake as a young freelancer to get a certificate of authority and not file when I had zero sales.
23 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 36.9 ms ] threadThen every bid has it's own unique weird things, where often you are told who you are bidding against and sometimes even how much the government wants to pay!
The scorecards are often weird, will do things like ask you to write mini-essays with word limits where you get penalised for being over the word count, or where 20% of the bid points are based on a combination of diversity and impact on the local community/environment rather than on who will do the job best at the lowest price.
The entire process is completely broken, and has no reference to good/standard procurement processes in the private sector.
I am 80% sure that someone is aware how much waste there is, but nobody wants to / is able to change the process. Just like many other organizations.
I mean, it does say it right there in black and white in the Supplier Contract that he signed up for ....
I know, to quote the author, "It can be hard running a small business.". But surely at least make an effort to read contracts you sign up to ?Why was it designed the way described in the article to begin with?
First, surely they know the contravention code because they gave me the ticket?!
Second, the two digit contravention code was actually a part of a three digit alphanumeric code found in this sentence "52m Failing to comply with a prohibition".
Welcome to the future.
Once a month, an email reminds you to click on a provided link, log in (via saved credentials, one assumes?) and click a single button? I get that it's small frustration, but I suspect there are far more egregious administration inefficiencies in the world of government than this.
(You should try living/working in Germany ;) )
Also to note, the title is a vast overstatement, but I guess "The monthly reporting requirements of the UK Government's Low Value Purchase System is a very minor waste of time, on some occasions" isn't quite so catchy.
for end consumer sales for a while the receipt paper had a scratch field where you could win something. this was to encourage consumers to demand the receipt.
they obviously didn't trust you to self report accurately, but this also reduces the friction, because i don't even need to bother making any reports. i don't think my accountant needs to do anything either. they have access to the same system and probably just verify that i didn't misfile or forget something. of course apart from the printed receipts everything is digital.
Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procurement teams to change their processes, but it is mostly dictated by national legislation.
I think allowing mayoral authorities to flex their procurement systems for innovative solutions would be a good testing ground. The whole point of devolution is to allow areas to spend money locally how they see fit and it can become a bit of a laboratory for new, risky ideas that - if they pay off - can be copied by other places.
As someone who bids for these contracts, my outsider view of the procurement process is that it seems to spends so much time and effort being fair and impartial, that it actually ends up:
* Giving too much information to suppliers (i.e. who else is bidding and how much the government will pay) - These things are never given in private sector contracts but you are often told with a public sector procurement process.
* Being a checkbox excercise, with scorecard criteria that can tip the balance that don't have anything to do with how well the company actually does the job.
* The procurement process itself can say to companies 'we are hard to deal with, uncooperative and don't really know what we want', which will obviously influence pricing. I've seen tender documents say silly things like you will be disqualified if you can't make an in-person meeting about the tender given 24 hours notice. Tender documents often contain 49 pages of waffle and almost zero specification of what is actually expected to be delivered (while this is common in the private sector too, it's much worse in the public sector in terms of how poorly defined tenders are).
* Often they have classic procurement footguns, like mandating cost down initiatives throughout the contract which everyone on the sales side knows means 'build in extra margin in years 1 & 2 to fake cost down to year 3'
* The process is so 'fair' that it ignores who will actually do the job for the best total value (mix of quality and cost). This is maybe a little subjective, but often you can end up with what appear to be bizarre awards from an outside perspective.
1. demanding for this data monthly, rather than quarterly or yearly; and
2. demanding it via an annoying bespoke process rather than as an entry in the business's regular tax filing or some other pre-existing regular paperwork that small businesses are already submitting?
Meh. If you’re a business in the US and your products subject to sales tax, you must file even if you have no sales.
I made the mistake as a young freelancer to get a certificate of authority and not file when I had zero sales.