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.
![handle is hein.gao/gaobabbmo0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
I/Z \ COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
WASHINGTON D.C. 20548
30 January 1981
B-201721
The Honorable Bob Packwood, Chairman
Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Howard W. Cannon
Ranking Minority Member 114274
Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation
U.S. Senate
Subject: )AO Comments on Department of Transportation
Study of Amtrak State and Local Taxation]
(PAD-81-58)
As requested in your letter of December 11, 1980, we have
reviewed the Department of Transportation's Amtrak State and
Local Taxation Study. We agree with the general thrust of
the report, which is that Amtrak is essentially a Federal
Government operation and as such should be exempt from most
State and local taxes. We have reservations, however, about
two of the report's recommendations.
As an exception to its proposal to exempt Amtrak from
paying State and local taxes, the report recommends that the
corporation should continue to pay real property taxes--but
with assessments frozen at the 1976 level. We believe that
consideration should be given to exempting the corporation
from these taxes too and replacing them by a system of pay-
ments in lieu of taxes.
The report recommends that the tax exemption should
extend to improvements to private railroad property that have
been made at Amtrak's expense. We feel that this recommendation
is not adequately justified in the report.
SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
USED IN THIS REVIEW
These coimnents are based primarily on a review of the
Department of Transportation (DOT) report and GAO's previous
work on AmtraK. (The GAO report numbered CED-81-35 contains
a bibliography of GAO reports on Amtrak.) 4e met with analysts
in DOT to make sure we understood their intent in the study, but
we did not attempt to verify the facts presented in the report.
As requested by your staff, we did not secure agency comments on
our report.
j 7 / (972254)
I](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaobabbmo0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)