Federal User Fees: Budgetary Treatment, Status, and Emerging Management Issues

Abstract

Given the scope and variety of federal activities, the federal budget is inevitably complex. This is particularly seen in the federal budgetary treatment of receipts. The 1967 President's Commission on Budget Concepts recommended a dual system of accounting for federal receipts. The Commission recommended that receipts from activities which were essentially governmental in nature, including regulation and general taxation, be reported as receipts, and that receipts from business type activities "offset to the expenditures to which they relate." The Commission recommended this system so that budget totals could present a clear picture of the extent of governmental activity. In practice, however, the distinction was never sharp as evidenced by the fact that revenue from business-type transactions, termed 'offsetting collections,' are not made available to agencies in the same way.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1997
Accession Number
ADA333319

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Agriculture
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Discretionary Spending
  • Federal Budgets
  • Finance
  • Financial Management
  • Fish
  • Governments
  • House Of Representatives
  • Law
  • Money
  • National Governments
  • United States
  • United States Government

Readers

  • Economics
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Theoretical Analysis.