You've got to be kidding

Annually the business is required to prepare a survey of "personal property" for the city, local district, and state tax assessment. They want to know how many desks and chairs, trash cans, toner cartridges, reams of office paper, lab notebooks, binder clips, staples, paper towels, tissues, and rolls of toilet paper we have on hand, so that they can double tax us on those items. Yes, like just about everyone else, we pay sales tax on office supplies and furniture that we purchase for the business. At one point, some bureaucrat had the bright idea that they could raise an extra couple hundred dollars from every business in the state, if they forced us to engage in the most absurd of exercises in time wasting. Our bill for last year was $83.45. It's not that I object to the cost, though in principle, why should I pay taxes twice for the same items? But what a huge waste of time both for the business, and for the state employees who have to process the reports, calculate the tax, deposit the checks. Isn't there an easier and more equitable means of gathering business taxes?