U.S. Government Standard General Ledger
Issues Resolution Committee (IRC) Meeting Minutes

April 12, 2012

GENERAL ITEMS:

This meeting was held at the Government Accountability Office, 441 G Street North West, Room 6N30, Washington D.C.

Kathy Winchester (FMS) opened the meeting and reviewed the agenda. Introductions were made.

HANDOUTS:

• Intra-governmental Transactions Involving Capitalized Assets
• USSGL Proposal: Eliminating the USSGL Zero Coupon Bonds Market Adjustment Accounts and Transactions Effective for Fiscal 2013
• USSGL Proposal: New Amortization Account Effective for Fiscal 2013
• Appropriated Trust or Special Fund Receipts Derived From "Unavailable" and "Available" Trust or Special Fund Receipt Accounts
• Debt Forgiveness
• USSGL Proposal Cancellation of Unobligated Balances Derived From Receipts and Spending Authority From Offsetting Collections Effective Fiscal 2013

AGENDA ITEMS:

Proposed New USSGL Account 5919, "Revenue and Other Financing Sources - Cancellations," Returned to Treasury

Karen Metler (FMS) presented proposed new USSGL account 5919, "Revenue and Other Financing Sources - Cancellations." This account is needed to capture cancellations where fund balance is originally derived from spending authority from offsetting collections, and special or trust fund balances consisting of receipts, and is returned to the General Fund of the Treasury. Since most revolving funds, trust funds, and special funds do not carry balances of unexpended appropriations forward to USSGL account 3100, "Unexpended Appropriations – Cumulative," an account (USSGL account 3310, "Cumulative Results of Operations") is needed to close out against cumulative results of operations.

Karen reviewed the impact on the account attribute table for fiscal 2013 and mentioned that for the Fed/NonFed attribute, USSGL account 5919 will mirror USSGL account 3106, "Unexpended Appropriations - Adjustments." Therefore, it will have a "G" attribute domain value just as USSGL account 3106 does. However, Ava Lun (FMS) brought up that the General Fund does not currently have an account set up to mirror USSGL account 5919, but she will talk to the General Fund team. Kathy mentioned that because the General Fund does not currently have this event set up and functioning, the best thing to do for now, is to use "F" for the Fed/NonFed attribute domain value instead of using "G." Kathy further mentioned that last week there was discussion on defining attribute domain value "G" and what activity is not considered "G." The USSGL Advisory Division staff has always said that "G" is equivalent to "F99," 100 percent of the time, but there is still activity for which the General Fund team have not created USSGL accounts or started to report. Therefore, unless a reporting model is built and the partner side is known to exist, agencies should use "F99" because there is currently no partner set up. Karen will update the Fed/NonFed attribute domain value for account 5919.

Proposed New USSGL Account 4113, "Appropriated Receipts Derived From Unavailable Trust or Special Fund Receipts," and Modified USSGL Account 4114, "Appropriated Receipts Derived From Available Trust or Special Fund Receipts"

Karen gave some background on available and unavailable receipts and mentioned that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is requesting a new account to better track unavailable receipts in trust or special funds. Karen presented proposed new scenario, Appropriated Trust or Special Fund Receipts Derived from "Unavailable" and "Available" Trust or Special Fund Receipt Accounts. The proposed new scenario includes new USSGL account 4113 and modified USSGL account 4114.

Discussion On How To Modify the USSGL Capitalized Asset Information for Intragovernmental Eliminations

Christine Chang (FMS) presented the discussion paper, Intragovernmental Transactions Involving Capitalized Assets. The paper focuses on the intragovernmental activities related to buying/selling of capitalized assets. Currently, there is an ongoing effort to resolve intragovernmental transactions in FMS/Treasury, which includes business process improvements and other various initiatives. The USSGL Advisory Division will focus on the accounting aspect of this problem.

The current process recognizes USSGL account 6500, "Cost of Goods Sold," as "N" activity only. The "N" domain value was assigned to USSGL account 6500 because the cost of goods sold is related to the cost of inventory. Inventory is an "N" account; therefore, any cost associated with the inventory is also treated as "N" activity. The same logic was applied to USSGL accounts 7110, "Gains on Disposition of Assets – Other," and 7210, "Losses on Disposition of Assets – Other." After looking at the current process and the Financial Report of the United States Government (FR) impact from these transactions, Christine is proposing that the IRC reconsider whether those USSGL accounts should have a different domain value.

Christine asked if intragovernmental revenues and expenses should be eliminated for the consolidated FR's purpose. Maryla Engelking (DoD) said that DoD uses a journal voucher entry to eliminate revenues and expenses between agencies for capitalized assets on the consolidated financial statements. Christine encouraged other agencies to submit their thoughts to her on this issue.

The USSGL Advisory Division is proposing that USSGL account 6500, "Cost of Goods Sold," have an "F" domain value and be eliminated against the revenue associated with it. Technically, an agency is only moving a fixed asset from one agency to another. Christine asked if an agency should recognize revenue and expense from a consolidated FR perspective. Cindy Sharp (LOC) and Carol Gower (State) were in favor of not doing this, especially at this time of year. After some discussion, Kathy mentioned that this is something the USSGL Advisory Division is putting on the table for discussion and asked that agencies send their comments to Christine.

Proposed New USSGL Account 4116, "Debt Forgiveness Appropriation" and Modified USSGL account 4146, "Actual Repayments of Debt, Current-Year Authority"

Karen presented the scenario, Debt Forgiveness, along with proposed new USSGL account 4116 and proposed modified USSGL account 4146. On occasion, Congress enacts into Public Law an inferred appropriation for the forgiveness of debt. When that occurs, the Department of Treasury processes a Treasury warrant, and, subsequently, the receiving entity must repay the debt back to the General Fund of the Treasury. This may occur in general funds, revolving funds, special funds, and trust funds (revolving and nonrevolving).

Teresa Tancre (OMB) interjected and mentioned that an inferred appropriation only provides a new appropriation to repay the debt to Treasury and get it off the books. It does not provide any new budgetary resource to obligate against.

Karen went over the impact on the attribute table, mentioning that the TAS Status should be changed from "U" to "U/E" for cases of a prior-year adjustment. Michele Crisman (FMS) noted that the Finance Account Indicator attribute domain value should be limited to "N," thereby making the Cohort Year attribute not required. Karen will make the change on the scenario. She went over the rest of the scenario.

Proposal for New USSGL Account 2534, "Amortization of Premium on Securities Issued by Federal Agencies Under General and Special Financing Authority"

Sherry Pontell (FMS) presented the proposal for new USSGL account 2534. Currently, both discount amortization and premium amortization (on the liability side) are recorded in USSGL account 2533, "Amortization of Discount and Premium on Securities Issued by BPD." Having them combined in the same USSGL account makes eliminations more difficult to reconcile since the discount amortization amount is not easily identified separately from the premium amortization amount.

The USSGL Advisory Division is recommending splitting out current USSGL account 2533 to have two separate accounts: one for amortization of discount, and one for amortization of premium. Splitting out the discount and premium of amortization on the liability side will assist with the eliminations because each of the eliminating pieces will be readily identifiable and will no longer be commingled into one account. Sherry also presented the modified transactions that will be impacted.

CLOSING REMARKS:

There were no roundtable topics, and Kathy concluded the meeting.

ATTENDEES:

Kathy Winchester, FMS
Sherry Pontell, FMS
Melanie White, FMS
Ava Lun, FMS
Karen Metler, FMS
Karl Foltz, FMS
Jonnathan Diaz, FMS
Stephanie Pickerell, FMS
Tia Harley, FMS
Michele Crisman, FMS
Jerome Commander, NASA
Hal Blitz, FMS
Dan Smith, PTO
Maryla Engelking, DOD
Carol Gower, State
Webster Coleman, DOL
Olufunmilayo Ariyo, DOL
Michael Ward, GSA
Jerry Shea, VA
Lise Trumbull, GSA
Rebekah Poirier, DHS
Marilyn Evans, Treasury
Danielle Christensen, Treasury
Sharon Vessels, DOJ
Leon Fleischer, SEC
Cindy Scharf, LOC
Jenny Smith, HHS
Young Sun, HUD
Mark Miller, NOAA
Bethany Williams, DOE
Robert Bell, DOE
Karen Hunter, SSA