Accrual Budgeting

This letter presents GAO's reaction to the Bush Administration's proposed accrual budget treatment of deposit insurance and pension guarantees. GAO believes that the current, cash-based budget treatment of deposit insurance and pension guarantees does not disclose the true costs of those programs and that the concept of reporting accruals in the budget is sound and could improve disclosure of program costs. The accrual calculations in the Administration's current proposal, however, go well beyond tested accrual accounting conventions and are suspect because of the uncertain assumptions and poor data behind the calculations. GAO concludes that the Administration's proposal is flawed and should be rejected by Congress pending further study.