Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In September 2003, we responded to a request from Representative Elton Gallegly to provide information on the number of taxpayers who claimed more than 10 withholding allowances and taxpayers who claimed exemption from federal income tax withholding. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls such claims questionable Form W-4s. However, in the course of performing our work, we became concerned about the reliability of the information that IRS maintains on these taxpayers and decided that we could not use it to answer Representative Gallegly's questions. The objectives of this letter are to summarize our findings about the reliability of the information IRS maintains on taxpayers who claimed more than 10 withholding allowances or exemption from federal tax withholding and to bring to the attention of the Commissioner, Internal Revenue, some resulting questions about the value of IRS continuing to collect the information."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Long-standing financial management problems, coupled with ineffective oversight and management of the Department of Defense's (DOD) travel card program, which GAO has previously reported on, have led to concerns about DOD's use of first and business class airfares. At the request of the Subcommittee on Investigations, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Senator Grassley, and Representative Schakowsky, GAO performed work to identify problems in DOD's controls over premium class travel. This testimony focuses on (1) the extent of DOD premium class travel, (2) the effectiveness of key internal control activities and examples of improper premium class travel resulting from internal control breakdowns, and (3) DOD's control environment over premium class travel. In a companion report being issued today, GAO made numerous recommendations--that DOD concurred with--to strengthen key internal control activities and improve the overall control environment."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The inability of first responders--police officers, firemen, hazardous materials teams, emergency medical service personnel, and others--to communicate effectively with one another as needed during an emergency is a long-standing and widely recognized problem in many areas across the country. When first responders cannot communicate effectively as needed, it can literally cost lives--of both emergency responders and those they are trying to assist. At the request of the Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, we are examining the barriers to improved interoperability and the roles that federal, state, and local governments can play in improving wireless interoperability communications."