**GAO-02-599T**                      Published: Apr 09, 2002. Publicly Released: Apr 09, 2002.                  

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## Highlights

As in the past four years, GAO was unable to express an opinion on the federal government's consolidated financial statements for fiscal years 2000 and 2001 because of material weaknesses in internal control and accounting and reporting issues. These conditions prevented GAO from providing Congress and American citizens with an opinion as to whether the consolidated financial statements are fairly stated in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Until these problems are adequately addressed, the government will continue to have difficulty (1) reporting its assets, liabilities, and costs; (2) adequately measuring the full cost and financial performance of programs and effectively manage related operations; and (3) adequately safeguarding  significant assets and and properly recording transactions.

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## Topics

Auditing and Financial Management

Accounting standardsFinancial managementFinancial statement auditsReporting requirementsFinancial statementsConsolidated Financial Statements of the U.S. GovernmentInternal controlsFinancial management systemsGovernment auditing standardsFinancial reporting