The opinion of the court was delivered by: Wexler, District Judge.
Defendant Warren J. Burdett ("defendant" or "Burdett") moves
to dismiss the counts of his indictment which charge him with
knowingly and willfully attempting to evade income taxes,
pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7203, owed for the years 1984 and 1985.
Burdett alleges that the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS")
failed to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980
("PRA" or "the Act"), 44 U.S.C. § 3501, et seq., by not
displaying Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") control
numbers or expiration dates on its Form 1040 instruction
booklet and implementing regulations. For the reasons set forth
below, this Court finds defendant's contentions to be without
merit.
The PRA was designed "to reduce and minimize the burden
Government paperwork imposes on the public." S.Rep. No. 930,
96th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, reprinted in 1980 U.S. Code Cong. &
Admin. News 6241, 6242 [hereinafter S.Rep. No. 930]. As
codified at 44 U.S.C. § 3501, the purposes of the Act are:
(1) to minimize the Federal paperwork burden
for individuals, small businesses, State and
local governments, and other persons;
(2) to minimize the cost to the Federal
Government of collecting, maintaining, using, and
disseminating information;
(3) to maximize the usefulness of information
collected, maintained, and disseminated by the
Federal Government;
(4) to coordinate, integrate and, to the extent
practicable and appropriate, make uniform Federal
information policies and practices;
(5) to ensure that automatic data processing,
telecommunications, and other information
technologies are acquired and used by the Federal
Government in a manner which improves service
delivery and program management, increases
productivity, improves the quality of
decisionmaking, reduces waste and fraud, and
wherever practicable and appropriate, reduces the
information processing burden for the Federal
Government and for persons who provide
information to and for the Federal Government;
and
(6) to ensure that the collection, maintenance,
use and dissemination of information by the
Federal Government is consistent with applicable
laws relating to confidentiality, including
section 552a of title 5, United States Code,
known as the Privacy Act.
44 U.S.C. § 3501; see, generally, Dole v. United Steelworkers,
494 U.S. 26, 110 S.Ct. 929, 108 L.Ed.2d 23 (1990).
Under the Act, a federal agency must submit to the Director
of the OMB any "written report form, application form,
schedule, questionnaire, reporting or recordkeeping
requirement, collection of information requirement or other
similar method calling for the collection of information [from
the public]." 44 U.S.C. § 3502(11), 3507. These forms and
requirements are known throughout the Act as "information
collection requests." The Director of the OMB must approve or
reject the agency's proposed information collection request
within sixty days of receiving it.*fn1 Id. at § 3507(b). If
the Director approves the request, he must assign it a control
number. Id. at § 3504. An agency may not engage in the
collection of information unless the Director has assigned a
control number to the appropriate form.*fn2 Id. at § 3507(f).
This number must be displayed in the upper right hand corner of
the front page of the form. Id.; see also 5 C.F.R. §
1320.7(e)(1).
Federal income tax forms were among the many paperwork
burdens imposed on the public which the PRA was created to
alleviate. S.Rep. No. 930 at 2; see also, Dole v. United
Steelworkers, 494 U.S. 26, 110 S.Ct. 929, 108 L.Ed.2d 23
(1990); United States v. Collins, 920 F.2d 619, 630 (10th Cir.
1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2022, 114 L.Ed.2d
108 (1991). Accordingly, in 1981, the Treasury Department
submitted approximately 700 IRS forms to the OMB for approval
and assignment of control numbers. Alexander, Review of Tax
Regulations and Rulings by The Office of Management and Budget
(by the Committee on Tax Policy of the New York State Bar
Association Tax Section), Tax Notes October 3, 1983 at 6. It is
to be noted that in the case at bar, the tax return forms that
Burdett failed to file — the IRS's 1040 forms for 1984 and
1985 — displayed OMB numbers as required by the Act.