A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assesses regulatory fees among industry sectors and fee categories based on obsolete data, with limited transparency. The Communications Act requires FCC to base its regulatory fees on the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) that perform regulatory tasks in certain bureaus, among other things. FCC based its fiscal year 2011 regulatory fee assessments on its fiscal year 1998 division of FTEs among fee categories. It has not updated the FTE analysis on which it bases its regulatory fees, in part to avoid fluctuations in fees from year to year. FCC officials stated that the agency has complied with its statutory authority by dividing fees among fee categories based on FTE data—although the data is from fiscal year 1998—since the statute does not prescribe a specific time for FCC to update its FTE analysis. As a result, after 13 years in a rapidly changing industry, FCC has not validated the extent to which its fees correlate to its workload. Major changes in the telecommunications industry include the increasing use of wireless and broadband services and a convergence of telecommunications industries. Moreover, FCC’s practice …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 expanded the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) whistleblower program, increasing rewards for submitting information on others' tax underpayments to up to 30 percent of collected proceeds. The expanded program targets tax underpayments over $2 million and could reduce the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid. IRS's Whistleblower Office has received over 1,300 submissions qualifying for this new program since 2007. GAO was asked to assess (1) how IRS manages the expanded program, (2) how IRS communicates with whistleblowers and the public, and (3) any lessons from IRS's or other government whistleblower programs that could improve IRS's expanded whistleblower program. GAO analyzed IRS documents and data and interviewed IRS officials, whistleblower attorneys, and federal and state whistleblower program officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Protective Service (FPS) is not assessing risks at federal facilities in a manner consistent with standards such as the National Infrastructure Protection Plan’s (NIPP) risk management framework, as FPS originally planned. Instead of conducting risk assessments, since September 2011, FPS’s inspectors have collected information, such as the location, purpose, agency contacts, and current countermeasures (e.g., perimeter security, access controls, and closed-circuit television systems). This information notwithstanding, FPS has a backlog of federal facilities that have not been assessed for several years. According to FPS’s data, more than 5,000 facilities were to be assessed in fiscal years 2010 through 2012. However, GAO was unable to determine the extent of FPS’s facility security assessment (FSA) backlog because the data were unreliable. Multiple agencies have expended resources to conduct risk assessments, even though the agencies also already pay FPS for this service. FPS received $236 million in basic security fees from agencies to conduct FSAs and other security services in fiscal year 2011. Beyond not having a reliable tool for conducting assessments, FPS continues to lack reliable data, which has hampered the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program is to control and monitor the entry and exit of foreign visitors by storing and processing biometric and biographic information. The entry capability has operated since 2006; an exit capability is not yet implemented. In September 2008, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, directed DHS to pilot air exit scenarios with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and airlines, and to provide a report to congressional committees. DHS conducted CBP and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) pilots and issued its evaluation report in October 2009. Pursuant to the act, GAO reviewed the evaluation report to determine the extent to which (1) the report addressed statutory conditions and legislative directions; (2) the report aligned with the scope and approach in the pilot evaluation plan; (3) the pilots were conducted in accordance with the evaluation plan; and (4) the evaluation plan satisfied relevant guidance. To do so, GAO compared the report to statutory conditions, the evaluation plan, and relevant guidance."