United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office General Government Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1996-03-15 monographic deposited born digital 30 p. GA 1.13:GGD-96-70 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70 P0b002ee1803a3548 f:gg96070 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70 GGD-96-70 Bonds (securities) Tax returns Income taxes Investments Government publications Reporting requirements Tax administration Tax nonpayment Voluntary compliance Letter Report GGD

GAO provided information on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) efforts to ensure that taxpayers report investment income earned from bonds sold at original issue discount (OID), focusing on the completeness and use of IRS Publication 1212.<p/>GAO found that: (1) IRS asserts that OID bond issuers can rely on Publication 1212 to identify all publicly offered OID bonds and compute OID income, but Publication 1212 did not list at least 37 bonds worth billions of dollars; (2) although IRS primarily relies on its sizable penalty to ensure that OID bond issuers file IRS Form 8281 to report OID bond issues, no IRS organization has primary responsibility for monitoring such compliance and there is no evidence that IRS has ever assessed the penalty; (3) IRS has not assessed penalties for late filings of Forms 8281; (4) IRS does not use other information it receives, such as corporate tax returns, to help ensure compliance with Form 8281 reporting requirements; (5) because Publication 1212 is not complete, those relying on the publication to determine their information reporting requirements may not be reporting on all OID bonds; and (6) although some banks and middlemen consider Publication 1212 to be incomplete, they indicated that the publication does serve as a starting point, authority, and reference source. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70/html/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70.pdf GAO/GGD-96-70 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GGD-96-70 Letter Report GAO/GGD-96-70; Tax Administration: IRS Can Improve Information Reporting for Original Issue Discount Bonds; Bonds (securities) Tax returns Income taxes Investments Government publications Reporting requirements Tax administration Tax nonpayment Voluntary compliance Title 31 Section 720 31 U.S.C. 720