Restatement Problems Not Limited to the Private Sector

The Governmental Accountability Office recently reported that seven of 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Accountability Act (CFO Act) needed to restate their financials in 2005 and that nine of eleven agencies which had restatements in 2003 failed to consistently communicate those restatements. Specific findings of the GAO (eleven total) included failure to tag the revised statements as restated; insufficient detail in agency footnotes and lack of disclosure of the 2003 financials.

The Federal Government is doing a better job with financial reporting than 15-20 years ago; nevertheless, given the involuntary nature of the large majority of receipts, it MUST do better yet.