Compliance with government regulatory requirements is costing individual small businesses thousands of pounds annually, the Small Firms Association (SFA) has said. The SFA criticised the Government for inaction "in dealing with the ever increasing administrative burdens being carried by small business".
The chairman of the SFA, Mr Kieran Crowley, said bureaucracy is now a barrier to market entry and a "significant impediment to business expansion".
"For example, in company employing just 8 people, 50 per cent of one person's time will be spent on form filling, that represents over 1,000 hours a year for just one small company," he said.
"If you apply that across Ireland's 160,000 small businesses, the result is mind boggling," he added.
"Any small business wishing to comply with essential aspects of Government imposed regulatory and legislative requirements - relating to PAYE, PRSI, VAT, corporation tax, social insurance - would have to read almost one million words and answer 100,000 questions a year," he stated.
