AGA Today
Federal Accounting Corner
Proposed New Custodial Revenue SGL Accounts
Back in October, I
wrote about the Statement of Custodial Activity (SCA) and mentioned that
one Standard General Ledger (SGL) account (5800 Tax Revenue Collected)
is mapped to several different lines (1 through 7). On Dec. 13, the SGL
Issues Resolution Committee proposed splitting out 5800 and related
accounts by tax type starting in FY2009, thus relieving much of the
ambiguity in this report. While this is still only a proposal, I thought
I'd outline the revised accounts because they really do make more sense
and I expect the proposal will pass.
Current Structure
The
current system splits revenue out by whether it is accrued or collected,
and it has a separate account for refunds (since those are funded
whereas taxes collected usually aren't). The contra-revenue account is
used to recognize that the revenue does not belong to the collecting
entity.
|
Account
|
Name |
SCA line(s) |
|
5800
|
Tax Revenue
Collected |
1-7 |
|
5801
|
Tax Revenue
Accrual Adjustment |
9 |
|
5809
|
Contra
Revenue for Taxes |
9 |
|
5890
|
Tax Revenue
Refunds |
11 or 13 |
Proposed Structure
The new
accounts are split out by the type of taxes, just like the first section
of the SCA. The following chart maps the proposed accounts to the
current accounts and tax type. It's not clear why the proposal skips the
5810 series of accounts (there are no accounts between 5806 and 5820).
While the SCA only requires account 5800 to be split out by tax type,
the new proposal splits out all related accounts by tax type as well.
The account sequence matches the split out on the Revised Statement of
Changes in Net Position in the GFRS system (with Unemployment taxes
listed before Excise), but there is no proposal currently to resequence
the SCA lines so they match.
|
Current
Account: |
SCA |
5800 |
5801 |
5809 |
5890 |
|
Individual
Income and FICA/SECA Taxes |
line 1 |
5801 |
5821 |
5831 |
5891 |
|
Corporate
Income Taxes |
line 2 |
5802 |
5822 |
5832 |
5892 |
|
Excise Taxes |
line 3 |
5804 |
5824 |
5834 |
5894 |
|
Estate and
Gift Taxes |
line 4 |
5805 |
5825 |
5835 |
5895 |
|
Federal
Unemployment Taxes |
line 5 |
5803 |
5823 |
5833 |
5893 |
|
Custom Duties |
line 6 |
5806 |
5826 |
5836 |
5896 |
|
Other (Not
Otherwise Classified) |
line 7 |
5800 |
5820 |
5830 |
5890 |
Conclusion
The
proposed new accounts promote consistency and reduce the number of
multi-use accounts (those mapped to multiple lines on the financial
statements). They also managed to fill out a sparsely populated section
of the SGL. If the proposal passes, the 5800 series will have the most
accounts of any of the financing sources (5000 series). —Simcha Kuritzky,
CGFM, CPA
This column is
provided as part of a free exchange of ideas in federal accounting, and
is not reviewed substantively before publication. Please send all
comments, queries or corrections to Simcha.Kuritzky@CGIFederal.com