Recommendation: We recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury ensure that the Fiscal Assistant Secretary enhances Treasury's procedures for the aggregate analysis to consider the impact of all amounts not obtained from significant entity audited financial statements on the reliability of the CFS and use the results to determine if audit coverage is needed for any information. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open

Comments: In commenting on our draft report, Treasury stated that it has already taken steps to address this recommendation by updating guidance to federal entities for the preparation of the fiscal year 2020 Agency Financial Reports or Performance and Accountability Reports. In addition, Treasury stated that it has drafted a memo to the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board to seek clarification of existing guidance related to reporting differences for federal entities that prepare financial reports according to FASB standards.

Recommendation: We recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury ensure that the Fiscal Assistant Secretary enhances Treasury's process for revising accounting and reporting policies to reasonably assure that financial information—including the SOCNP, Funds from Dedicated Collections note, and Other Liabilities note—is prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP and sufficiently documented to allow effective management review. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open

Comments: In commenting on our draft report, Treasury stated that it has already taken steps to address this recommendation by updating guidance to federal entities for the preparation of the fiscal year 2020 Agency Financial Reports or Performance and Accountability Reports.

Recommendation: We recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury ensure that the Fiscal Assistant Secretary enhances existing procedures to reasonably assure that disclosures for financial information incorporated using accounting standards issued by FASB are prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP, such as improving (1) the quantitative analysis to consider all FASB information included in the CFS, (2) the FASB questionnaire to consider all relevant disclosures and obtain responses from all significant component entities, and (3) procedures for sufficiently documenting analyses and conclusions related to FASB information in the CFS. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open

Comments: In commenting on our draft report, Treasury stated that it drafted a memo to the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board to seek clarification of existing guidance related to reporting differences for federal entities that prepare financial reports according to FASB standards.

Recommendation: The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should track the results of large partnerships audits: (a) define a large partnership based on asset size and number of partners; (b) revise the activity codes to align with the large partnership definition; and (c) separately account for field audits and campus audits.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: IRS has taken actions to implement GAO's September 2014 recommendation, but the definition IRS provided is not likely to help it analyze results from audits of the very large partnerships that GAO's report covered. In September 2017, IRS defined large partnerships as those with assets of $10 million or more, without regard to the number of partners. With changes to the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 partnership audit procedures and enactment of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA) (sections 1101 and 1102 of Public Law 114-74), IRS officials said that the number of partners is no longer a critical factor when defining a large partnership. IRS is correct that the number of partners is no longer relevant to this statutory definition of large partnership. The recently eliminated Electing Large Partnerships audit procedures had defined large partnerships as those with 100 or more direct partners in a taxable year. Even so, IRS's new definition of large partnerships is limited compared to large corporations. IRS has defined eight asset categories for tracking large corporation audit results while it has one for large partnerships, which vary widely based on asset amounts and complex structures. As GAO reported, during tax years 2002 through 2011, the number of large partnerships with 100 or more direct and indirect partners as well as $100 million or more in assets more than tripled to 10,099, some of which had assets exceeding $5 billion. In tax year 2011, more than two-thirds of these large partnerships had at least 100 or more pass-through entities as direct and indirect partners. Until IRS develops a more expansive definition of large partnerships, IRS may have challenges analyzing the results from its audits of large partnerships. As of January 2020, IRS had revised its activity codes to create a category for its large partnership definition as well as created a reporting and monitoring structure for its new definition to track the results from auditing large partnerships. IRS also created reports to regularly track audit results (e.g., dollar amounts, hours, number of returns, campus versus field locations) for this one category. IRS officials said they plan to use the reports to analyze audit results to identify opportunities to better plan and use resources in auditing large partnerships but this outcome may not be possible with the statutory changes governing partnerships. Given the challenges involving such audits, IRS officials said they have started efforts to better select partnership returns for audits based on compliance risk. They said these efforts will extend at least through fiscal year 2021. Thus, IRS does not yet know whether the audit results will be sufficient to analyze ways to better plan and use IRS audit resources as well as to analyze noncompliance risk for its new definition. IRS's analysis may not be able to achieve these ends with only one asset category to cover the wide range of asset amounts above $10 million.

Recommendation: The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should analyze the audit results by these activity codes and types of audits to identify opportunities to better plan and use IRS resources in auditing large partnerships.

Agency: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of January 2020, IRS created a reporting and monitoring structure for its new large partnership definition to track the results from auditing large partnerships. IRS also created reports to regularly track audit results (e.g., dollar amounts, hours, number of returns, campus versus field locations) for this one category. IRS officials said they plan to use the reports to analyze audit results to identify opportunities to better plan and use resources in auditing large partnerships but this outcome may not be possible with the statutory changes governing partnerships. Thus, IRS does not yet know whether the audit results will be sufficient to analyze ways to better plan and use IRS audit resources as well as to analyze noncompliance risk for its new definition. IRS's analysis may not be able to achieve these ends with only one asset category to cover the wide range of asset amounts above $10 million. Given these and other challenges involving such audits, IRS officials said they have started efforts to better select partnership returns for audits based on compliance risk. They said these efforts will extend at least through fiscal year 2021.

Recommendation: To help improve its ability to oversee M&O contractor costs, including indirect costs, for its laboratories and make more effective use of DOE and contractor resources, the Secretary of Energy should take--or, as appropriate, direct the Administrator of NNSA to incorporate more specific benchmarking requirements into future laboratory contracts--similar to the benchmarking requirements used by DOE to assess and manage pension and post-retirement benefit costs--including which costs should be benchmarked, how frequently benchmarking should occur, and what process should be used to ensure corrective actions are taken, as needed.

Agency: Department of Energy
Status: Open

Comments: In April 2017, the Director of NNSA Office of Policy issued guidance to NNSA Laboratory Field Office Managers to update contracts to include a new clause requiring laboratory contractors to submit a strategic plan every year in accordance with guidance. Part of the annual plan requires contractors to discuss the costs of doing business and cost-increase factors at the sites, including overhead dollars. The annual strategic plan is due to the NNSA Office of Policy by August 15 each year. The annual strategic plans included information on indirect costs and cost drivers, but did not include benchmarking. We again requested information on the benchmarking requirements, if any, in July 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs to develop a framework for OIA employees to use in conducting site visits to help ensure objectives are achieved, to assure that relevant information is shared with responsible officials, and to allow more efficient and effective monitoring of issues.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: On May 24, 2017, the Department of Interior (DOI) sent out an email to its staff showing the dissemination of the new format required for completing trip reports by the staff of the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA). The new format requires staff to include travel justification (i.e., purpose/objective, location, and travel period) and trip report (i.e., meetings, site visits, results, and next steps, as applicable.) The intent of the recommendation is for DOI to have a framework that includes (1) status of required single audit reports; (2) the progress of actions to resolve reported internal control weaknesses; and (3) current needs for technical assistance, capacity building, and staff level expertise. Further, the intent of GAO's recommendation is that this information be integrated into a comprehensive monitoring process. We did not see these elements included in DOI's new format. At present, the agency has been unable to provide additional information that supports the development of a framework for conducting sites visits that incorporates procedures about how information will be shared and monitored. In August 2020, the agency informed us that it has taken additional corrective actions some time ago and is in the process of trying to locate the supporting documentation. We will continue to monitor the agency's actions to address this recommendation.