Recommendation: To enhance the ability of the Executive Office of the President to implement the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act of 2014 requirements related to reporting on advanced manufacturing, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, working through the National Science and Technology Council and agency leadership, as appropriate, should identify the information they will collect from federal agencies to determine the extent to which the objectives outlined in the National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing are being achieved.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Science and Technology Policy
Status: Open

Comments: In October, 2018, the Subcommittee on Advanced Manufacturing, Committee on Technology of the National Science Technology Council released a Strategy for American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing. This strategy provided some information on progress toward achieving the objectives of the prior National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing; however, it is unclear what information is to be collected from agencies and likewise how progress toward achieving the goals of the current strategy will be measured. We will update the status of this recommendation when the Office of Science and Technology Policy identifies the information to be collected from federal agencies and how this information will be used to assess progress in achieving the current goals, objectives, and priorities.

Recommendation: To help ensure that the contributions of tax expenditures toward the achievement of agency goals are identified and measured, the Director of OMB, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, should work with agencies to identify which tax expenditures contribute to their agency goals, as appropriate--that is, they should identify which specific tax expenditures contribute to specific strategic objectives and agency priority goals.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of December 2019, OMB had not begun to work with agencies to identify which tax expenditures contribute to the agencies' specific strategic objectives and agency priority goals, as GAO recommended in 2016. OMB staff told GAO that, although they agreed with the recommendation, it was not an effort they were pursuing due to competing priorities, as well as capacity and resource constraints. Without additional OMB assistance, agencies may continue to have difficulty identifying whether or which of the dozens of tax expenditures-representing an estimated $1.32 trillion in forgone revenues in fiscal year 2019-contribute to their goals.

Recommendation: If Congress wishes to evaluate the effectiveness of the ITC and the PTC as incentives for the development of renewable utility-scale electricity generation projects as it considers proposals to extend the ITC or reauthorize the PTC, it should consider directing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to provide Congress with project-level data currently collected from taxpayers who claim the ITC in lieu of the PTC--such as the number of projects for which they are claiming the credit, the technology of the projects taking the credit, and the total generating capacity added--and make such data available for analysis. Additionally, take steps to collect and report the same data from all taxpayers claiming the ITC.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: Congress has not taken action on this matter as of June 11, 2020.

Recommendation: If Congress wishes to evaluate the effectiveness of the ITC and the PTC as incentives for the development of renewable utility-scale electricity generation projects as it considers proposals to extend the ITC or reauthorize the PTC, it should consider directing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to take steps to collect project-level data from taxpayers claiming the PTC--such as the number of projects for which they are claiming the credit, the technology of the projects taking the credit, and the total generating capacity--and make these data available for analysis.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: Congress has not taken action on this matter as of June 11, 2020.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, revise relevant guidance to direct agencies to collaborate with each other in defining and identifying programs that contribute to common outcomes.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, revise relevant guidance to provide a time frame for what constitutes "persistent over time" that agencies can use as a decision rule for whether to include short-term efforts as programs.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, define plans for when additional agencies will be required to develop program inventories.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, include tax expenditures in the federal program inventory effort by designating tax expenditure as a program type in relevant guidance.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: No executive action has been taken. As of October 2020, OMB had not taken action to include tax expenditures in the federal program inventory, as GAO recommended in October 2014. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 requires OMB to publish a list of all federal programs on a central, government-wide website. The federal program inventory is the primary tool for agencies to identify programs that contribute to their goals, according to OMB's guidance. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In June 2019 and July 2020, OMB issued guidance (Circular No. A-11) that states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. According to OMB, this will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements nor the actions GAO recommended including designating tax expenditures as a program type. By including tax expenditures in the inventory, OMB could help ensure that agencies are properly identifying the contributions of tax expenditures to the achievement of their goals.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to better present a more coherent picture of all federal programs, include tax expenditures in the federal program inventory effort by developing, in coordination with the Secretary of the Treasury, a tax expenditure inventory that identifies each tax expenditure and provides a description of how the tax expenditure is defined, its purpose, and related performance and budget information.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: No executive action has been taken. As of October 2020, OMB had not taken action to include tax expenditures in the federal program inventory, as GAO recommended in October 2014. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 requires OMB to publish a list of all federal programs on a central, government-wide website. The federal program inventory is the primary tool for agencies to identify programs that contribute to their goals, according to OMB's guidance. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In June 2019 and July 2020, OMB issued guidance (Circular No. A-11) that states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. According to OMB, this will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements nor the actions GAO recommended including designating tax expenditures as a program type. By including tax expenditures in the inventory, OMB could help ensure that agencies are properly identifying the contributions of tax expenditures to the achievement of their goals.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to help ensure that the information agencies provide in their inventories is useful to federal decision makers and key stakeholders, and to provide greater transparency and ensure consistency in federal program funding and performance information, revise relevant guidance to direct agencies to consult with relevant congressional committees and stakeholders on their program definition approach and identified programs when developing or updating their inventories.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to help ensure that the information agencies provide in their inventories is useful to federal decision makers and key stakeholders, and to provide greater transparency and ensure consistency in federal program funding and performance information, revise relevant guidance to direct agencies to identify in their inventories the performance goal(s) to which each program contributes.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To ensure the effective implementation of federal program inventory requirements and to make the inventories more useful, the Director of OMB should, to help ensure that the information agencies provide in their inventories is useful to federal decision makers and key stakeholders, and to provide greater transparency and ensure consistency in federal program funding and performance information, ensure, during OMB reviews of inventories, that agencies consistently identify, as applicable, the strategic goals, strategic objectives, agency priority goals, and cross-agency priority goals each program supports.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of October 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had not taken any actions in response to our recommendations related to the federal program inventory. Although OMB published an initial inventory covering the programs of 24 federal agencies in May 2013, OMB decided to postpone further development of the inventory in order to coordinate with the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). In its June 2019 and July 2020 updates to Circular No. A-11, OMB provided a time frame for doing so. OMB's guidance states that beginning with the 2021 budget cycle, agencies' program activities will be used for the inventory's program-level reporting requirements. This will allow OMB and agencies to present program-level spending data, by leveraging what is reported on USASpending.gov as required by the DATA Act. However, OMB's guidance does not cover other inventory information reporting requirements, nor the actions we recommended. We will continue to monitor progress.

Recommendation: To provide federal policymakers information on the relative effectiveness of Title IV programs and higher education tax expenditures, the Secretary of Education should take advantage of opportunities presented by recent and anticipated substantive program changes to sponsor and conduct evaluative research into the effectiveness of Title IV programs and higher education tax expenditures at improving student outcomes.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: As of January 2020, the Department of Education (Education) had made some progress toward sponsoring and conducting evaluative research into the effectiveness of Title IV programs and higher education tax expenditures at improving student outcomes, as GAO recommended and Education agreed to in 2012. For example, Education took several steps to make data on higher education programs more accessible for research purposes. Education officials also said they are convening stakeholder panels including both governmental and nongovernmental researchers to identify and prioritize key policy questions related to Title IV and higher education tax expenditures. Afterward, Education is planning to partner with governmental or external researchers--via contracts or grants--to investigate the issues identified as priorities. GAO believes that Education's leadership of such efforts would represent a meaningful commitment to make progress on addressing this recommendation. Given that Education has identified a critical research gap in the area of linking higher education financing to student outcomes, GAO continues to emphasize that Education should ensure that its efforts result in actively sponsoring or conducting evaluative research specific to federal programs and assistance that can be used in future policymaking. Making these data-sharing and research efforts a priority will help policymakers make fact-based decisions on the merits and value of various federal assistance efforts.

Recommendation: Given the lack of information on IRD users and where property claimed under IRD is placed in service, Congress may wish to consider requiring IRS to collect information identifying which taxpayers use IRD and the reservation and/or address where they have placed the property into service. In deliberating additional requirements, Congress should weigh the need for more IRD information with the associated costs of collecting and analyzing the information as well as the effects on IRS's other priorities.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of February 2020, we continue to monitor the issue.

Recommendation: As Congress considers whether tax-exempt governmental bonds should be used for professional sports stadiums that are generally privately used, it may also wish to consider whether other facilities, including hotels and golf courses, that are privately used should continue to be financed with tax-exempt governmental bonds.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: No legislative action as of March 2020. GAO suggested in February 2008 that as Congress considers whether tax-exempt governmental bonds should be used for professional sports stadiums that are generally privately used, it also should consider whether other privately used facilities, including hotels and golf courses, should continue to be financed with such bonds. Reconsidering the tax-exempt status of certain bonds could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional federal revenue.

Recommendation: To ensure that policymakers and the public have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to improve the progress toward exercising greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, should resume presenting tax expenditures in the budget together with related outlay programs to show a truer picture of the federal support within a mission area.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: No executive action taken as of February 2020. OMB had not presented tax expenditures in the fiscal year 2021 budget together with the related outlay programs. OMB did not agree that GAO's September 2005 recommendation is necessary and stated that presenting information on tax expenditures together with related outlay programs is not useful for budgeting and that such a presentation is not part of the congressional budget process. However, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires a list of tax expenditures, including special tax credits, deductions, exclusions, exemptions, deferrals, and preferential tax rates. Whereas OMB favors reporting tax expenditures separately from the rest of the budget, GAO has reported that an integrated presentation is also useful to show the relative magnitude of tax expenditures compared to spending and credit programs across mission areas. OMB previously presented tax expenditure sums alongside outlays and credit activity for each budget function in the federal budget from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2002, but discontinued the practice. Tax expenditures resulted in $1.32 trillion in forgone revenue in fiscal year 2019 and have been roughly approximate to federal discretionary spending levels in recent years.

Recommendation: To ensure that policymakers and the public have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to improve the progress toward exercising greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, should require that tax expenditures be included in the PART process and any future such budget and performance review processes so that tax expenditures are considered along with related outlay programs in determining the adequacy of federal efforts to achieve national objectives.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: OMB made some progress in including tax expenditures along with related outlay programs in the executive branch's budget and performance review processes, as GAO recommended in September 2005. However, as of December 2019, OMB had not developed a systematic approach for conducting such reviews, and OMB staff told GAO that they were not pursuing the effort because of competing priorities, as well as capacity and resource constraints. Prior to that time, OMB had made some progress on the action. The President's fiscal year 2012 budget stated that the administration would work toward examining the objectives and effects of the wide range of tax expenditures in the budget. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires OMB and the agencies to identify the relevant tax expenditures that contribute to each crosscutting priority goal. Beginning with its August 2012 update to Circular No. A-11 with guidance for implementing GPRAMA and continuing in subsequent annual updates, OMB has directed agencies to identify tax expenditures that contribute to each of their agency priority goals. Beginning with the July 2013 update, OMB expanded its guidance to include identifying these contributions to agency strategic objectives. In both its July 2013 and July 2014 guidance, OMB stated that it planned to work with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and agencies to facilitate alignment of tax expenditure information with agency priority goals and strategic objectives. However, in its June 2015 update of this guidance, OMB removed the language about working with Treasury and agencies to align tax expenditures with agency goals. OMB's December 2019 guidance still requires agencies to identify tax expenditures that contribute to their agency priority goals and strategic objectives.

Recommendation: To ensure that policymakers and the public have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to improve the progress toward exercising greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, should develop and implement a framework for conducting performance reviews of tax expenditures. In developing the framework, the Director should (1) determine which agencies will have leadership responsibilities to review tax expenditures, how reviews will be coordinated among agencies with related responsibilities, and how to address the lack of credible performance information on tax expenditures; (2) set a schedule for conducting tax expenditure evaluations; (3) re-establish appropriate methods to test the overall evaluation framework and make improvements as experience is gained; and (4) to identify any additional resources that may be needed for tax expenditure reviews.

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: Treasury did not submit comments on this report and deferred to OMB. OMB agreed that this recommendation had promise and also said that tax expenditure evaluations were the responsibility of Treasury, which had access to the necessary data. As of February 2020, when the President's fiscal year 2021 budget was released, the Director of OMB had not developed a framework for reviewing tax expenditure performance, as GAO recommended in June 1994 and again in September 2005. Since their initial efforts in 1997 and 1999 to outline a framework for evaluating tax expenditures and preliminary performance measures, OMB and the Department of the Treasury have ceased to make progress and retreated from setting a schedule for evaluating tax expenditures. The President's fiscal year 2012 budget stated that developing an evaluation framework is a significant challenge due to limited data availability and analytical constraints of isolating the effect of any single program. The administration planned to focus on addressing some of these challenges so it can work toward crosscutting analyses that examine tax expenditures alongside related spending programs. However, OMB and Treasury have not reported on progress on this recommendation since the President's fiscal year 2012 budget. In December 2019, OMB said its Office of Economic Policy is responsible for the framework outline. OMB said it was exploring options to further develop its evaluation framework, which would include working with Treasury. The budget released in February 2020 did not provide an update on these evaluation framework efforts.

Recommendation: To ensure that policymakers and the public have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to improve the progress toward exercising greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, should develop and implement a framework for conducting performance reviews of tax expenditures. In developing the framework, the Director should (1) determine which agencies will have leadership responsibilities to review tax expenditures, how reviews will be coordinated among agencies with related responsibilities, and how to address the lack of credible performance information on tax expenditures; (2) set a schedule for conducting tax expenditure evaluations; (3) re-establish appropriate methods to test the overall evaluation framework and make improvements as experience is gained; and (4) to identify any additional resources that may be needed for tax expenditure reviews.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: No executive action has been taken. As of February 2020, when the President's fiscal year 2021 budget was released, the Director of OMB had not developed a framework for reviewing tax expenditure performance, as GAO recommended in June 1994 and again in September 2005. Since their initial efforts in 1997 and 1999 to outline a framework for evaluating tax expenditures and preliminary performance measures, OMB and the Department of the Treasury have ceased to make progress and retreated from setting a schedule for evaluating tax expenditures. The President's fiscal year 2012 budget stated that developing an evaluation framework is a significant challenge due to limited data availability and analytical constraints of isolating the effect of any single program. The administration planned to focus on addressing some of these challenges so it can work toward crosscutting analyses that examine tax expenditures alongside related spending programs. However, OMB and Treasury have not reported on progress on this recommendation since the President's fiscal year 2012 budget. As of December 2019, OMB said its Office of Economic Policy is responsible for the framework outline. OMB said it was exploring options to further develop its evaluation framework, which would include working with Treasury. The budget released in February 2020 did not provide an update on these evaluation framework efforts.

Recommendation: To ensure that policymakers and the public have the necessary information to make informed decisions and to improve the progress toward exercising greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, the Director of OMB, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, should require that tax expenditures be included in the PART process and any future such budget and performance review processes so that tax expenditures are considered along with related outlay programs in determining the adequacy of federal efforts to achieve national objectives.

Agency: Department of the Treasury
Status: Open

Comments: In October 2005, the Department of the Treasury responded that this recommendation did not relate to Treasury. OMB made some progress in including tax expenditures along with related outlay programs in the executive branch's budget and performance review processes, as GAO recommended in September 2005. However, as of December 2019, OMB had not developed a systematic approach for conducting such reviews, and OMB staff told GAO that they were not pursuing the effort because of competing priorities, as well as capacity and resource constraints. The President's fiscal year 2012 budget stated that the administration would work toward examining the objectives and effects of the wide range of tax expenditures in the budget. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires OMB and the agencies to identify the relevant tax expenditures that contribute to each crosscutting priority goal. Beginning with its August 2012 update to Circular No. A-11 with guidance for implementing GPRAMA and continuing in subsequent annual updates, OMB has directed agencies to identify tax expenditures that contribute to each of their agency priority goals. Beginning with the July 2013 update, OMB expanded its guidance to include identifying these contributions to agency strategic objectives. In both its July 2013 and July 2014 guidance, OMB stated that it planned to work with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and agencies to facilitate alignment of tax expenditure information with agency priority goals and strategic objectives. However, in its June 2015 update of this guidance, OMB removed the language about working with Treasury and agencies to align tax expenditures with agency goals. OMB's December 2019 guidance still requires agencies to identify tax expenditures that contribute to their agency priority goals and strategic objectives.