Skip to main content

Recommendations Database

Jump To:

As of May 2, 2024, there are 5135 open recommendations that still need to be addressed. 413 of these are priority recommendations, those that we believe warrant priority attention. Learn more about our priority designation on our Recommendations page.

Search for open recommendations by agency, topic, subject, or keyword/phrase below, or view all open recommendations by agency.

Clear All Filters
5081 - 5100 of 5135 Recommendations, including 413 Priority Recommendations

Servicemember Reemployment: Agencies Are Generally Timely in Processing Redress Complaints, but Improvements Needed in Maintaining Data and Reporting

GAO-11-55
Yvonne Jones
Show
3 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To help ensure that that servicemembers who file complaints are adequately being informed of their USERRA complaint process rights in accordance with VBIA 2008, Congress may wish to consider amending USERRA to require DOL to report on the extent to which it is notifying complainants of their USERRA complaint process rights within 5 days of filing a complaint.
Open

As of March 7, 2024, no legislative action has been taken.
Congress To help ensure that DOJ handles state cases as expediently as private employer cases, Congress may wish to consider amending USERRA to specifically require DOJ to adhere to the same 60-day deadline for state employer matters that they must adhere to for matters against private employers.
Open

As of March 7, 2024, no legislative action has been taken.
Congress To help ensure that servicemembers in state employer cases are kept apprised of the status of DOJ's decision making without potentially compromising DOJ's ability to successfully bring suit against state employers, Congress may wish to consider amending USERRA to require DOJ to notify these servicemembers of the status of DOJ's efforts.
Open

As of March 7, 2024, no legislative action has been taken.

Food and Drug Administration: Overseas Offices Have Taken Steps to Help Ensure Import Safety, but More Long-Term Planning Is Needed

GAO-10-960
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Food and Drug Administration To help ensure that FDA's overseas offices are able to fully meet their mission of helping to ensure the safety of imported products, the Commissioner of FDA should ensure, as it completes its strategic planning process for the overseas offices, that it develops a set of performance goals and measures that can be used to demonstrate overseas office contributions to long-term outcomes related to the regulation of imported products and that overseas office activities are coordinated with the centers and Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA).
Open – Partially Addressed

In a June 2022 written response, FDA described multiple strategic planning efforts it was undertaking to demonstrate the contributions of the overseas offices to long-term outcomes of imported products and coordination with ORA. Of these, FDA provided supporting documentation that it has developed performance measures related to long-term outcomes of inspections conducted by overseas office staff, which it implemented as of March 2023. Specifically, these measures included targets and assessed the contribution of the offices toward helping FDA follow up on prior inspections that identified

Tax Gap: IRS Can Improve Efforts to Address Tax Evasion by Networks of Businesses and Related Entities

GAO-10-968
James R. White
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Internal Revenue Service The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should establish an IRS-wide strategy with goals, which may need to be developed incrementally, to coordinate and plan ongoing and future efforts to identify and pursue network tax evasion. The strategy should include: (1) assessing the effectiveness of network analysis tools, such as yK-1; (2) determining the feasibility and benefits of increasing access to existing IRS data, such as scanning additional data from Schedule K-1, or collecting additional data for use in its network analysis efforts; (3) putting the development of analytical techniques and tools that focus on networks as the unit of analysis, such as GraphQuery, on a specific time schedule; and (4) deciding how network efforts will be managed across IRS, such as whether a core program team or management group is needed.
Open – Partially Addressed

As of March 2024, IRS had not created a documented, agency-wide strategy to manage network noncompliance efforts; however, IRS has developed elements of the strategy, as GAO recommended in September 2010. IRS has made and continues to focus on making iterative improvements to its network analysis tools. Although these improvements are not contained within an IRS-wide strategy, they relate to assessing effectiveness. IRS has also taken steps to assess its most predominantly used network analysis tool. As part of an annual survey, IRS asked users of this tool about its effectiveness and to

Mortgage Financing: Opportunities to Enhance Management and Oversight of FHA's Financial Condition

GAO-10-827R
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To strengthen accountability and transparency in FHA's management of the Fund, Congress may wish to consider clarifying (1) the definition of the Fund's capital ratio--specifically, whether the denominator of the ratio was intended to be the amortized insurance-in-force; (2) the definition of the phrase "established target subsidy rate" used in HERA; and (3) the nature and extent of information that FHA should be reporting on subsidy rates pursuant to HERA, recognizing that subsidy rates are generally only reestimated once a year under current budget processes.
Open

As of March 2024, Congress had not acted on this matter for consideration.

Financial Regulation: Clearer Goals and Reporting Requirements Could Enhance Efforts by CFTC and SEC to Harmonize Their Regulatory Approaches

GAO-10-410
Orice Williams Brown
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Commodity Futures Trading Commission To help ensure that CFTC and SEC are strategically positioned to implement the joint report's recommendations and address remaining harmonization opportunities, as CFTC and SEC continue to develop the charter for the Joint Advisory Committee, the Chairmen of CFTC and SEC should take steps to establish, with associated time frames, clearer goals for future harmonization efforts and requirements for reporting and evaluating progress toward these goals. Specifically, the agencies could benefit from formalizing a plan to assess implementation of the joint report's recommendations and harmonization opportunities that may not have been fully addressed by the joint report, such as differences in market structure and investor definitions. Such a plan could include goals for future harmonization efforts, such as time frames for implementing the recommendations; assessment of whether remaining differences in statutes and regulations result in inconsistent regulation of similar products and entities that could lead to opportunities for regulatory arbitrage; and periodic reports to Congress on their progress, including the implementation and impact of the recommendations.
Open

In July 2018, the CFTC and SEC Chairmen signed an updated version of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) originally signed in 2008. The new MOU created an updated framework for information sharing to make it easier for the two agencies to share information. A CFTC official noted that the MOU underscored two agencies' commitment to addressing harmonization efforts. In addition, CFTC officials identified examples of harmonization areas where CFTC and SEC have made some additional progress. This recommendation remains open until CFTC identifies steps taken to create a plan for assessing progress

Tax Compliance: IRS May Be Able to Improve Compliance for Nonresident Aliens and Updating Requirements Could Reduce Their Compliance Burden

GAO-10-429
Show
2 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress Given the difficulty of enforcing the requirement for aliens to obtain certificates of compliance--sailing permits--before departing the country and the existence of withholding requirements and tax treaties, Congress may wish to consider eliminating the sailing permit requirement.
Open

As of June 2023, Congress has not eliminated the sailing permit requirement.
Congress Given the increasing extent of business travel to the U.S. and the eroding effect of inflation, Congress may wish to consider raising the amount of U.S. income paid by a foreign employer that is exempt from tax for nonresidents who meet the other conditions of the exemption.
Open

As of June 2023, Congress has not raised the amount of U.S. income paid by a foreign employer that is exempt from tax for nonresidents who meet the other conditions of the exemption.

Recovery Act: IRS Quickly Implemented Tax Provisions, but Reporting and Enforcement Improvements Are Needed

GAO-10-349
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress The Congress may wish to consider broadening IRS's ability to use math error authority (MEA), with appropriate safeguards against misuse of that authority.
Open – Partially Addressed

Congress has expanded IRS's math error authority several times under certain circumstances, but not as broadly as GAO suggested in February 2010. The President's budgets have previously requested that Congress expand IRS's math error authority. For example, the President's budget proposal for fiscal year 2021 requested authority to correct a taxpayer's return in the following circumstances: (1) the information provided by the taxpayer does not match the information contained in government databases; (2) the taxpayer has exceeded the lifetime limit for claiming a deduction or credit; or (3) the

New Markets Tax Credit: The Credit Helps Fund a Variety of Projects in Low-Income Communities, but Could Be Simplified

GAO-10-334
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress Should the program be extended beyond 2009, to ensure that the maximum amount of capital ends up in low-income community businesses, Congress may wish to consider offering grants to CDEs that would provide the funds to low-income community businesses. If it does so, Congress may wish to require Treasury to gather appropriate data to assess whether and to what extent the grant program increases the amount of federal subsidy provided to low-income community businesses compared to the NMTC; whether the grant program otherwise affects the success of efforts to assist low-income communities; and how costs for administering the program incurred by the CDFI Fund, CDEs, and investors would change. One option may be for Congress to set aside a portion of funds to be used as grants and a portion to be used as tax credit allocation authority under the current structure of the program in a future allocation round to facilitate comparison of the two program structures.
Open

No legislative action has been identified as of February 2024. Section 112 of division EE of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, extended NMTC through 2025 (Pub. L. No. 116-260; 134 Stat. 1182, 3050 (2020)). However, this act did not offer grants in lieu of credits, as GAO suggested in January 2010. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated this extension cost approximately $5.7 billion. The President's Fiscal Year 2025 Budget proposed permanently extending the NMTC. Offering grants in lieu of NMTCs could result in a greater portion of the federal subsidy reaching low-income community

Environmental Health: High-level Strategy and Leadership Needed to Continue Progress toward Protecting Children from Environmental Threats

GAO-10-205
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress Because EPA alone cannot address the complexities of the nation's challenges in addressing environmental health risks for children, Congress may wish to consider re-establishing a government-wide task force on children's environmental health risks, similar to the one previously established by Executive Order 13045 and co-chaired by the Administrator of EPA and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Congress may wish to consider charging it with identifying the principal environmental health threats to children and developing national strategies for addressing them. Congress may also wish to consider establishing in law the Executive Order's requirement for periodic reports about federal research findings and research needs regarding children's environmental health.
Open

As of March 5, 2024, we have not identified actions by the Congress to establish in law requirements such as those in Executive Order 13045.

Disaster Assistance: Federal Assistance for Permanent Housing Primarily Benefited Homeowners; Opportunities Exist to Better Target Rental Housing Needs

GAO-10-17
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To the extent that the CDBG program continues to be the primary vehicle used to provide post-disaster assistance for permanent housing, Congress may wish to consider providing more specific direction regarding the distribution of disaster-related CDBG assistance that states are to provide for homeowners and renters. If Congress wishes to change the proportion of assistance directed to homeowners and rental property owners in future recovery efforts, Congress could, for example, require states to demonstrate to HUD that they are adequately addressing the needs of both homeowners and renters with their CDBG allocation and other resources as a condition for receiving funds. Alternatively, Congress could direct HUD to develop a formula that accounts for the housing needs of both homeowners and renters. Such a formula could be used by states to determine the proportions of their disaster CDBG funds that should be used for housing, specifically rental housing. Further, the formula could also reflect the anticipated production levels of other programs that provide permanent housing assistance, such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.
Open

Since 1993, Congress has appropriated Community Development Block-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding in the wake of numerous presidentially-declared disasters. In the most recent CDBG-DR appropriation, Congress appropriated $2 billion in Public Law 117-180 for the same purposes as funds appropriated in Public Law 117-43 except the amounts will be for major disasters that occurred in 2021 or 2022, and Congress appropriated $3 billion in Public Law 117-328 for the same purposes as funds appropriated in Public Law 117-43, except that the amounts will be for major disasters that occurred in 2022

Tax Gap: Actions Needed to Address Noncompliance with S Corporation Tax Rules

GAO-10-195
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Congress To improve compliance with shareholder basis rules, Congress may wish to require S corporations to calculate and report shareholder's stock and debt basis as completely as possible. S corporations would report the calculation on the Schedule K-1 and send it to shareholders as well as IRS. If Congress judges that stock purchase price information that is currently only available to shareholders should not be transmitted to the S corporation due to privacy concerns, an alternative is to require that S corporations report less complete basis calculations using information already available to the S corporation.
Open

No legislative action has been identified. As of March 2024, Congress had not enacted legislation to require S corporations--a federal business type that provides certain tax benefits like passing income and losses to shareholders' individual returns--to calculate and report shareholders' stock and debt basis as completely as possible and report the calculation to shareholders and IRS, as GAO suggested in December 2009. Shareholders who do not properly track and report their basis may overclaim losses passed to them from the S corporation and improperly offset other taxable income

2010 Census: Census Bureau Has Made Progress on Schedule and Operational Control Tools, but Needs to Prioritize Remaining System Requirements

GAO-10-59
Robert N. Goldenkoff
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of Commerce To improve the Bureau's use of its master schedule to manage the 2020 decennial census, the Secretary of Commerce should require the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau to include estimates of the resources, such as labor, materials, and overhead costs, in the 2020 integrated schedule for each activity as the schedule is built, and prepare to carry out other steps as necessary to conduct systematic schedule risk analyses on the 2020 schedule.
Open

Commerce neither agreed nor disagreed with this recommendation. Regarding GAO's 2013 assessment of the Bureau's schedule (GAO-14-59), Bureau officials stated that they hoped to begin identifying the resources needed for each activity in their schedules by early 2014. Bureau officials announced they had completed the 2020 Census schedule in July 2016, and have since periodically described their intent to link resources to activities within their schedules. However, as of May 2018, the Bureau had not taken these steps. Senior Bureau officials stated that it would require additional staffing in

Tax Policy: The Research Tax Credit's Design and Administration Can Be Improved

GAO-10-136
Show
5 Open Recommendations
Agency Recommendation Status
Department of the Treasury In order to significantly reduce the uncertainty that some taxpayers have about their ability to earn credits for their research activities, the Secretary of the Treasury should issue regulations clarifying the definition of gross receipts for purposes of computing the research credit for controlled groups of corporations.
Open

Treasury issued proposed regulations clarifying the definition of gross receipts on December 13, 2013 and solicited public comments. During the course of 2014, tax practitioners and business executives submitted comments criticizing the regulations and asking for them to be withdrawn. As of February 2023, Treasury has yet to issue final regulations that would include responses to these criticisms. The regulations would not become effective until the tax year beginning after the date on which the regulations are published in final form.
Department of the Treasury In order to significantly reduce the uncertainty that some taxpayers have about their ability to earn credits for their research activities, the Secretary of the Treasury should provide additional guidance to more clearly identify what types of activities are considered to be qualified support activities.
Open

As of February 2023, Treasury has not issued regulations to clarify what types of activities are considered to be qualified support activities.
Department of the Treasury In order to significantly reduce the uncertainty that some taxpayers have about their ability to earn credits for their research activities, the Secretary of the Treasury should provide additional guidance to more clearly identify when commercial production of a qualified product is deemed to begin.
Open

As of February 2023, Treasury has not issued regulations to more clearly identify when commercial production of a qualified product is deemed to begin.
Congress In order to reduce economic inefficiencies and excessive revenue costs resulting from inaccuracies in the base of the research tax credit, Congress should consider eliminating the regular credit option for computing the research credit.
Open

As of January 2024, Congress had not enacted legislation to eliminate the regular computation option for the research tax credit or to add a minimum base to the ASC option, as GAO suggested in November 2009. The credit is designed to encourage business innovation by providing a subsidy for new research. Continued use of the regular computation credit option, which arbitrarily distributes subsidies across taxpayers, can distort investment decisions so that research spending and economic activity are not allocated to sectors that offer the highest returns to society. These misallocations may
Congress In order to reduce economic inefficiencies and excessive revenue costs resulting from inaccuracies in the base of the research tax credit, Congress should consider adding a minimum base to the ASC that equals 50 percent of the taxpayer's current-year qualified research expenses.
Open

As of January 2024, Congress had not enacted legislation to eliminate the regular computation option for the research tax credit or to add a minimum base to the ASC option, as GAO suggested in November 2009. The credit is designed to encourage business innovation by providing a subsidy to new research. Continued use of the regular computation credit option, which arbitrarily distributes subsidies across taxpayers, can distort investment decisions so that research spending and economic activity are not allocated to sectors that offer the highest returns to society. These misallocations may
Note: the list of open recommendations for the last report may continue on the next page.

Have a Question about a Recommendation?

For questions about a specific recommendation, contact the person or office listed with the recommendation. For general information about recommendations, contact GAO's Audit Policy and Quality Assurance office at (202) 512-6100 or apqa@gao.gov.