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Executive Summary

The Good Accounting Obligation in Government Act (the Act) requires each Federal agency to 

include, in its annual budget justification, a report that identifies each public recommendation 

issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the agency's inspector(s) general 

(IGs) that has remained unimplemented for one year or more from the budget justification 

submission date. In compliance with the Act, Treasury has included a report listing each public 

recommendation issued by GAO, Treasury Office of Inspector General (OIG), and Treasury 

Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). For recommendations with which Treasury 

agreed, this report provides timelines for full implementation of the planned corrective actions 

(PCAs). For recommendations with completed PCAs, this report indicates the status as 

"Implemented and Awaiting Auditor Verification." For recommendations with which Treasury 

disagreed or did not implement corrective actions due to budgetary constraints or other factors, 

this report indicates their status as either "Rejected" or "On Hold," respectively. For 

recommendations where Treasury did not formally respond or take action, this report indicates 

“No Action Taken.” 

The Act also requires a reconciliation between the agency records of unimplemented 

recommendations and each IGs' Semiannual Report to Congress (SAR). Treasury IGs use the 

same system (Treasury’s Joint Audit Management Enterprise System (JAMES)) for the reporting 

of unimplemented recommendations in the SAR. In addition, Treasury IGs have direct access to 

JAMES and regularly review and validate the recommendation implementation status recorded in 

JAMES by conducting corrective action verifications and follow-up audits. A reconciliation table 

is provided as part of this report to illustrate that the discrepancies between this report and the 

SAR are due to differences in reporting criteria. 

The information used to create this report is based on JAMES and GAO’s recommendations 

database available on www.gao.gov. 

Reporting Methodology and Report Structure

This report includes GAO, OIG, and TIGTA recommendations issued between 2/1/2013 and 

1/31/2020 (7 years per Treasury’s record retention policy) that remained unimplemented for one 

year or more from the planned fiscal year 2022 budget justification submission date. 

The report has five parts: 

Appendix 1: A report listing GAO recommendations and their implementation status. 

Appendix 2: A report listing OIG recommendations and their implementation status. 

Appendix 3: A report listing TIGTA recommendations and their implementation status. 

Appendix 4: A reconciliation of this report and the IGs’ SARs. 

Appendix A: A listing of acronyms used throughout this report. 
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Status of Unimplemented Recommendations 

Out of a total of 482 unimplemented recommendations, 231 have corrective actions in progress, 181 have 

been implemented and are awaiting auditor verification, and 70 are in “rejected,” “on hold,” or “no actions 

taken” status. 

 

Unimplemented Recommendations By Audit Area 

Out of a total of 482 unimplemented recommendations, the top audit areas of Tax Administration and 

Compliance, Financial Statements, Information Technology, and Administration of Program Operations 

account for 90% of all unimplemented recommendations. 

79

100

52

180

1

50

4

16

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

GAO OIG TIGTA

Corrective Actions in Progress

Implemented and Awaiting Auditor

Verification

Rejected, On Hold, or No Action

Taken

7

11

12

15

64

101

124

148

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Human Capital

Improper Payments

 Other Financial Matters

(e.g. Lending, Debt Management, etc.)

Terrorism and Financial Crime

Administration of Program Operations

Information Technology

Financial Statements

Tax Administration and Compliance