Delicious irony in a CFO.com story about how the US tax man himself can’t keep a set of straight books.
The Internal Revenue Service has had serious shortcomings in its internal controls and financial management systems that caused it to sap its resources in the preparation of its financial statements in the fiscal years of 2004 and 2005, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
As a result of the controls and systems flaws, the IRS didn’t keep effective watch over its financial reporting or legal and regulatory compliance, according to the GAO. Thus, the revenue service didn’t “provide reasonable assurance that losses, misstatements, and noncompliance with laws material in relation to the financial statements would be prevented or detected on a timely basis,” the report concluded.
Maybe he should be subject to a series of snap audits, just to keep him on his toes.
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Right, because government should be better than the rest of us mere mortals at economic calculation.
Good pointer, good story. I shouldn’t have read it here first — it should be all over the place. But hey, I DID read it here first.
-Billy
Too bad Sarbanes doesn’t apply. Send the chief up for 25 years …
What? Hold a bureaucrat personally responsible for the conduct of his department? That would be….unamerican!
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