Report puts cost of Dodd-Frank at $36 billion

Regulations from the Wall Street financial reform law have imposed more than $36 billion in costs on the economy and have created 73 million paperwork hours, according to a new report from the conservative American Action Forum.

{mosads}The report, which comes a day before Dodd-Frank’s sixth anniversary, found that the law costs about $112 per person or $310 per household, and it would take 36,950 employees working full-time to complete the paperwork required by the law in a single year.

The report’s author, AAF Director of Regulatory Policy Sam Batkins, said that of the hundreds of rulemaking mandates contained in the sweeping financial reform law enacted July 21, 2010, there are at least 61 regulations remaining that could add another $3.3 billion and nearly 1 million paperwork hours to the law’s tally.

Batkins said the Federal Reserve’s Requirements for Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) is the biggest rule still to finalize. Proposed last year, the rule aims to improve capital standards at the largest interconnected financial institutions and carries a cost of $1.5 billion annually. The final rule is due out in December 2016.

Citing the semi-annual regulatory agenda, Batkins said the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected by June to finish rules requiring companies to provide information on payments to foreign governments and corporations for the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals.