About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

144 IRET Congressional Advisory 1 (2002)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/iretcgadv0141 and id is 1 raw text is: INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMICS OF TAXATION IRET is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) economic policy research and educational organization devoted to informing the public about policies that will promote growth and efficient operation of the market economy. December 11, 2002 Advisory No. 144 NEW GAO STUDY INDICATES NEED FOR MORE FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY AT THE POSTAL SERVICE Executive Summary A new study by the U.S. General Accounting (GAO) examines the timeliness and completeness of the financial information that the U.S. Postal Service releases during the year. The GAO finds that the Postal Service's financial reporting, while better than a few years ago, is still not adequate to properly inform the Congress, mail users, and the public of the condition of the Service. Furthermore, the reporting remains less transparent than that typically provided by publicly traded companies in the private sector. The GAO is also concerned that the Postal Service is not releasing more information about the eventual cost of post-retirement health benefits for its workers. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) finds in a new study that there is less financial transparency at the Postal Service than at most publicly traded companies.1 The GAO reported in earlier work that the Postal Service has, in the past, failed to produce quarterly reports, issued periodic reports with inadequate detail concerning various product lines, and presented information in inconsistent formats that made it impossible to track developments over time. The GAO now reports that, in response to its earlier prodding, the Postal Service has begun releasing more information than previously. However, it is still not providing the sort of timely, consistent and detailed information that is required of and generally provided by private sector companies. The GAO report points out that the Service's estimates of its financial outlook sometimes swing wildly. Between Nov. 2000 and Feb. 2001, the Postal Service raised its estimate for its fiscal year 2001 deficit from $480 million to between $2 billion and $3 billion with little or no public explanation.'2 (The actual loss turned out to be $1.7 billion.) Similarly, in fiscal year 2002, the Postal Service initially estimated that it would lose $1.35 billion during the year but then stated, in May 2002, that its net loss for the year could have reached $4.5 billion.'3 The GAO observes that these significant changes in financial outlook were not evident from publicly available information and came as a surprise to many stakeholders.',4 Later, the GAO remarks that the type of explanatory information which is missing from the Postal Service's disclosures and which might have made sense of changes like those above is typically provided in quarterly financial reports of publicly traded companies.5 The Postal Service now generates regular quarterly reports and posts them on its web site, as recommended by earlier GAO studies. This 8~em k3. S I g6~ I

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most