United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2003-07-23 monographic deposited born digital 25 p. GA 1.13:GAO-03-687R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R P0b002ee18037b559 f:d03687r DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-23 GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R GAO-03-687R Financial statement audits Financial statements Internal controls Records management Strategic planning Tax administration systems Excise taxes Trust funds Financial records Airport and Airway Trust Fund Highway Trust Fund Correspondence A07669

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), along with other components of the Department of the Treasury, collects and distributes excise tax receipts to government trust funds. As the nation's tax collector, IRS plays a critical role in this process. Consequently, trust funds and their administrators depend on IRS to have sound procedures and controls over this process to ensure that excise taxes are appropriately distributed. This report is a follow-up to two reports we recently issued discussing procedures we performed to assist the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General (Transportation IG) in ascertaining whether the net excise tax collections and excise tax certifications reported by IRS for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2002, were supported by underlying records. The agreed-upon procedures, along with our audit of IRS's fiscal year 2002 financial statements, provided a sufficient basis to assist the Transportation IG in forming an opinion on the departmentwide financial statements and the financial statements of the trust funds administered by the department, including the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R.pdf GAO-03-687R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-03-687R Correspondence GAO-03-687R; Management Report: Improvements Needed in Controls over IRS's Excise Tax Certification Process; Financial statement audits Financial statements Internal controls Records management Strategic planning Tax administration systems Excise taxes Trust funds Financial records Airport and Airway Trust Fund Highway Trust Fund Title 31 Section 720 31 U.S.C. 720 Volume 112 Page 107 112 Stat. 107 Public Law 105-178