A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Effective tax rates (ETR) differ from statutory tax rates in that they attempt to measure taxes paid as a proportion of economic income, while statutory rates indicate the amount of tax liability (before any credits) relative to taxable income, which is defined by tax law and reflects tax benefits and subsidies built into the law. Lacking access to detailed data from tax returns, most researchers have estimated ETRs based on data from financial statements. A common measure of tax liability used in past estimates has been the current tax expense--either federal only or worldwide (which comprises federal, foreign, and U.S. state and local income taxes). The most common measure of income for these estimates has been some variant of pretax net book income. GAO was able to compare book tax expenses to tax liabilities actually reported on corporate income tax returns."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report is GAO's fifth annual assessment of selected weapon programs. From 2001 to the present, the Department of Defense (DOD) has doubled its planned investment in new systems from approximately $750 billion to almost $1.5 trillion. While DOD expects these systems to transform military operations, their acquisition remains a high-risk area. GAO's reviews of weapons over three decades have found consistent cost increases, schedule delays, and performance shortfalls. The nation's growing long-range fiscal challenges may ultimately spur Congress to pressure DOD to cut spending on new weapons and to redirect funding to other priorities. In response, DOD might be compelled to deliver new weapon programs within estimated costs and to obtain the most from its investments. This report provides congressional and DOD decision makers with an independent, knowledge-based assessment of selected defense programs, identifying potential risks and needed actions when a program's projected attainment of knowledge diverges from the best practices. Programs assessed were selected using several factors: high dollar value, acquisition stage, and congressional interest. This report also highlights issues raised by the cumulative experiences of individual programs. GAO updates this report annually under …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This is GAO's eighth annual assessment of selected Department of Defense (DOD) weapon programs. The report examines how well DOD is planning and executing its weapon acquisition programs, an area that has been on GAO's high-risk list since 1990. This year's report is in response to the mandate in the joint explanatory statement to the DOD Appropriations Act, 2009. The report includes (1) observations on DOD's efforts to manage its portfolio of major defense acquisition programs; (2) an assessment of the knowledge attained by key junctures in the acquisition process for a subset of 42 weapon programs from the 2009 portfolio; (3) data on other factors that can affect program execution; and (4) examples of how DOD is implementing recent acquisition reforms. To conduct the assessment, GAO analyzed data on the composition of DOD's portfolio of major defense acquisition programs. GAO did not analyze the cost and schedule performance of the portfolio because DOD did not issue timely or complete Selected Acquisition Reports for the second consecutive presidential transition. GAO expects to resume its portfolio analysis in next year's assessment. GAO also collected data from program …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This is GAO's seventh annual assessment of selected Department of Defense (DOD) weapon programs. The report examines how well DOD is planning and executing its weapon acquisition programs, an area that has been on GAO's high-risk list since 1990. This year's report is in response to the mandate in the joint explanatory statement to the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009. The report includes (1) an analysis of the overall performance of DOD's 2008 portfolio of 96 major defense acquisition programs and a comparison to the portfolio performance at two other points in time--5 years ago and 1 year ago; (2) an analysis of current cost and schedule outcomes and knowledge attained by key junctures in the acquisition process for a subset of 47 weapon programs--primarily in development--from the 2008 portfolio; (3) data on other factors that could impact program stability; and (4) an update on changes in DOD's acquisition policies. To conduct our assessment, GAO analyzed cost, schedule, and quantity data from DOD's Selected Acquisition Reports for the programs in DOD's 2003, 2007, and 2008 portfolios. GAO also collected data from program …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) has provided about $6 billion in grants for three Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs that fund housing or community development. As of March 31, 2010, HUD's Capital Fund awarded nearly $3 billion in grants to 3,134 public housing agencies, the Community Development Block Grant-Recovery (CDBG-R) awarded about $1 billion to 1,167 recipients, and the Tax Credit Assistance Program (TCAP) awarded $2.25 billion to 52 state housing finance agencies. The act requires recipients to report specific information on fund use. Recipients began reporting in October 2009. This information is publicly available on Recovery.gov, the official Recovery Act Web site. As requested, for these three HUD programs, the report (1) examines what information recipients are required to report as a part of their descriptions of funded projects, and (2) assesses the extent to which descriptions of a representative sample of 219 grants in Recovery.gov are transparent in providing a basic understanding of grant activities and expected outcomes. GAO reviewed requirements for reporting in the act and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and HUD guidance."