As you might imagine, alcohol production is a highly regulated industry in the United States. Breweries must go through a multi-month process with the Feds before beginning operations including background checks, inspections and a variety of tax registrations.
I started that process today, using the new Permits Online website provided by the Tax and Trade Bureau. "Sweet," I thought, imagining how easy it would be to use this brand new web application and thinking how much faster the process would be over filling out paper forms.
Yeah, right.
I don't doubt that they spent millions creating a clunky and pretty basic site that would embarrass most web developers. And only the Federal Government, in this day and age, would create a web application that only works on Internet Explorer. (Ever heard of JQuery? Scriptaculous? MooTools? They make cross-browser development easy and they're all free!)
My least favorite "feature": When you resume an application (which actually is a nice feature...start now, finish later), you must resubmit every page that you've completed so far, without any ability to navigate forward or back in the process. And the applications are long...some are 10 pages or more.
</rant>
To their credit, it does appear that the submissions work once you get past the browser issues and I'm sure the site will streamline the existing application & registration process. I guess we will confirm that once I am (or am not) brewing next spring.
PS- Dear TTB, please don't hold up my application for beer-making and tax-paying. I still love you, even if your web app is busted.
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