Hi all. I got a letter, reputedly from the US Dept. of Commerce's Census Bureau, that says that by law, I am required to go to this and such website and fill out some survey. Google was useless in telling me whether or not this is a scam, or legit. Anyone else get this letter?
Posted Feb 19, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC
I got it. I'm pretty sure it's legit. I'm not filling it out. The fine for not filling it out can be 500. However, the fine for what they consider is a falsified answer is 1000. That irritates me enough to at least push the issue until they show up at my door.
Just fyi I think it’s $5,000 and $10,000 based on the information they have published.
Same principle, just much higher stakes.
Yeah, I realized that a few dates later. 10k for a willfully wrong answer....
I managed to find the number of the person who's name is on the letter. He sent me down a few levels, too a person who drafted up a letter saying I could skip any answer I was not completely sure of, and they would not count that as willfully wrong. So with that, I did fill out the census.
I’m still working on trying to get in touch with someone. The online portal (which I guess by law I’m required to register for, which is bullshit) doesn’t have an option for decline to answer.
I guess there’s always the fact that if I don’t actually have the data to answer correctly they have no way to prove my guess was inaccurate.
Dealing with this bullshit now and pissed enough I just wanted to come rant.
What a fucking load of horse shit. This is essentially penalizing small businesses to send them something they’re acknowledging could take pretty much an entire day to answer.
Questions are just getting more and more granular. Asking for information from 2021 we don’t keep because it’s useless to us and it would just cost us money to keep unneeded records.
Or at least I thought they weren’t needed. Apparently could be on the hook for $10,000 fines for giving intentionally false answers.
And to top it all off I have to trust them with my email and personal information for the privilege of wasting my time on something that I’m just about guaranteed will serve me no benefit whatsoever.
If the government actually wanted to prove to SBOs that it cared about small businesses they would be making it easier to run a business, not adding another thing to do under penalty of prosecution on top of all the other shit the government makes SBOs do.
hey, I got this as well; I was advised by friend not to do it as once you start it takes hours, questions are super tricky and there is a penalty if your anwser would be incorrect so Im scared of it! + he advised to just ignore it but on the other hand I don’t want to get a penalty for not complying…. he says that he doesn’t know anyone who did get a penalty ever but well… I don’t want to risk. Do you remember what questions were there? Are they very detailed and tricky as he suggested? Did you fill it out at the end?
I finished it today, but yeah half the shit was stuff I just didn’t have answers for. It’s going to vary what they ask depending on industry.
I specifically asked what to do if I don’t have any data to answer their questions and was told a “good faith estimate” would suffice. I couldn’t do that, but I can take a healthy swag and I guess since there’s no data they can’t tell me it was intentionally inaccurate.
Whole thing still pisses me off. And on top of all the work for zero payoff for my company it’s nice to know that the results derived are meaningless if they’re all based on guesses.
My reckoning though is that the $5000 fine is easy for them to apply. And they point out that you’re still not exempt from responding.
But I imagine the $10,000 is hard to enforce unless you really are just intentionally lying for some reason. So I’m not really worried about that.
I finished it today, but yeah half the shit was stuff I just didn’t have answers for. It’s going to vary what they ask depending on industry.
I specifically asked what to do if I don’t have any data to answer their questions and was told a “good faith estimate” would suffice. I couldn’t do that, but I can take a healthy swag and I guess since there’s no data they can’t tell me it was intentionally inaccurate.
Whole thing still pisses me off. And on top of all the work for zero payoff for my company it’s nice to know that the results derived are meaningless if they’re all based on guesses.
My reckoning though is that the $5000 fine is easy for them to apply. And they point out that you’re still not exempt from responding.
But I imagine the $10,000 is hard to enforce unless you really are just intentionally lying for some reason. So I’m not really worried about that.
But hey! I guess it really is a benefit to some small businesses! All my competitors that didn’t have to waste 7 hours filling this out or paying their accountant to do it for them benefitted by our loss!
Yeah, you just have to do it, especially with the requirement that you access online, they'll immediately have a list of all "offenders." My online portal is already telling me I'm 'overdue' despite it still being 03/15.... you didn't mention the time assholes.
I'm a small business military/federal contractor, I have over 10 military projects and 60+ employees. I have a bookkeeper, a CPA, and another CPA to audit my CPA for purposes of my bank's line of credit and maintaining my federal surety bond.
Having said all that... wtf man.. seriously would need to hire a forensic accountant to answer these questions. Can't even rely on my yearly financials since my Financial Year End is June, and their survey is for Calendar Year.
I feel for you.
We’re lucky enough that our fiscal year is the calendar year, but halfway through taking wild ass “good faith estimates” I did think how much worse it would be if that weren’t the case.
so for the questions you had no answers for you just gave an estimate…? can you skip a question at all if it doesn’t apply to your business or no? And how long did it take? in the letter I got it says approx. 7minutes but I’ve heard hours! and do you ask to upload something? or just written answers
It took me several hours. Most things I couldn’t skip. I didn’t have to upload anything.
The version I did there’s no possible way anyone could do it in 7 minutes unless they have every transaction for the last two years memorized and have rainman math skills.
I hear you. I literally have no idea how to answer these. They act like I have a percentage of all the soda I sell. This is clearly made by people who have no idea how difficult it is to micro-manage this kind of stuff
It’s clearly geared to large businesses that have much larger staffs. It sounded like they sent these out to all large businesses and only some small businesses, but didn’t bother to tailor them.
The fact that it’s required under penalty of law and has no option to just say “I have no idea” makes me absolutely sure that a large portion of the data they’re getting back is entirely useless.
The older I get the less I understand anyone that prefers the government to handle pretty much anything as opposed to an organization or individuals with half a brain and understand how the real world works.
Yeah, it's legit. Letters just went out. It's like jury duty. Penalties for failing to respond or willful false information range from $500 and up and to years in prison.
Not really sure if it's truly prosecuted that way though. I imagine you'd have to do something on a pretty grand scale to get a jury to go that far.
Just make sure it's a ....census.gov website before you proceed.
Small business federal/military contractor with approx. 60 employees.
Just trying my best, but some of these questions are borderline impossible to answer within a reasonable timeframe. I have a bookkeeper, 2 sets of CPA's, and I'd probably have to pay my CPA on retainer around $2K-$3K worth.
My financial year end also ends on June, so my yearly financials aren't super helpful either to answer these questions.
Fuck'n hell....
Appalling - the new small business economy census was passed and made mandafory Oct 22. (other economic census has been around for a while). but this one targeting small businesses is new. very new. and appalling. i sent it to our lawyer and cpas. there’s no way this won’t end up in a data breach down the road. who voted this in?
The economic census at portal.census.gov is legitimate.
According to the US Census Bureau:
The Economic Census is the official five-year measure of American business and the economy. Data provided by businesses fuels the most comprehensive economic statistics available, representing all U.S. industries and geographies.
Invitations to complete the Economic Census were mailed to selected businesses starting on January 31, 2023. If you received one, responses are due by March 15th and are required by law.
Source: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census/year/2022/2022-main.html
You can read the FAQ for more information at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census/year/2022/about/faq.html .
Edit: formating
Yes. Legit. I just gave a best guess recollection to get through it as quickly as possible. Maybe a 20-30 min effort
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You’re not worried about being fined?
No. The information is all accurate to the best of my recollection.
They just have the laws or regulations around this so loose and vague that it’s got me worried to guess at something I don’t have data to back up.
It's probably legitimate. However, I do believe several independent business organizations like NFIB had lots of questions/concerns regarding the intrusive nature of questioning.
We used to receive the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs. It started out as a few pages to fill out every 5 yrs. Then it turned into an annual event w/ more than 30+ pages asking questions like how we stored financial records, where we kept financial records, breakdown of revenue sourcing, customer demographic including types and geographic locations, revenue figures, questions abt contracts, angel investors, details on officers (ethnicity, race, background, phone contact info + home address, specific tribe identifiers), shareholder equity, venture capital investments, hiring/firing practices, outsourcing, R&D breakdown & R&D funding sources, itemized listing of patents, copyrights, trademarks & shareholder exit strategy.
Dept of Commerce used to share this information w/ the Kaufman Foundation & the Minority Business Development Agency. Not sure if they do so now.
Just had to do it for the small business I work for. What an absolute headache 😩. Everything was so much more confusing than it needed to be!!
it’s a bunch of horse shit. did any small business law firms fill this out? i kicked it back to a law processor and a cpa - and they are filing a law suit
My husband is a solo lawyer with an S corp business. We filed an extension to file his 2022 IRS returns and the extension deadline is in mid-September. Yet the census deadline is in August. We don't have the 2022 numbers to complete the census. I handle his business bookkeeping while also working full time and raising kids. I'll do my best to estimate numbers to put in this survey, but I can't guarantee they're accurate. We aren't in the financial position to spend a lot of money to pay our CPA to complete this. This whole census is a time suck and such BS!
Definitely would love to hear how that goes. Please share updates if you can! It was such horseshit, absolutely out of control. How is ANY small business supposed to survive with this kind of ludicrous questioning that can result in some hefty fines??!! If this were last year and we got slapped with a $5k fine, easily that could’ve ended us.
I’m currently doing it for the law office I work at, it has taken me hours and I’m only on item 20 where it is asking for percentages of the establishments total operating receipts… I’m so lost I have been emailing with the accounting firm we use and they are even a bit stuck.. we had an extension until today and it already has us down in red for being late on it. We called them and they said if we did not do it we would be fined $15,000 so I will love to hear more about this law suit.
This thing is miserable!
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I knicked the census man.
I got it and completed it on Friday. Had to give my best guess on many of the questions.
If I recall you may phone in your response and report “decline to answer”.
census.gov
Decline to answer specific questions or decline to answer at all?
Each question.
Don't reply. Lose it. (Report says it's mandatory.)
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Did anyone skip answering it?
did you end up answering? I am still late to do mine
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Not sure if this is still alive, I am trying to help my parents with their small business fill out the census... they are the owners and not very well versed in analytical english but neither am I . We had gotten this back in march, but was told by accountant that we shouldn't do it? But we keep receiving notices and now it's late... anyone still haven't done it yet or is late to do so?
I wish we had "lost" ours too. Unfortunately, I logged in yesterday to start the 2023 Annual Business Survey assuming that it was a quick and easy survey. I was wrong. It was our first time receiving this letter. I'm sure we'll now be penalized if we don't complete it since we logged in. I'm so #$Q#$% mad at myself for registering and starting the process. I'm sure we're being tracked now.
Several people have "lost" theirs.
Well, just got the annual 2023 census. Still having nightmares from last years.
Filling mine out now ugh. Already an hour in to it. Just saying I don't know if I can't recall. Not getting paid for this so.....
I stopped because I got annoyed. I’m going to do what you did and put I don’t know.
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It is normal and legit. My company received the same letter, along with several of our clients.
Phew, ok -- thank you so much!