Department of the Treasury

The Department of the Treasury’s mission is to serve the American people and strengthen national security by managing the U.S. government's finances effectively, promoting economic growth and stability, and ensuring the safety, soundness, and security of the U.S. and international financial systems.

GAO’s past and ongoing work has identified key challenges facing the department as it works toward ensuring economic growth, efficient and stable financial markets, and a fair and efficient tax system. These challenges are significant because they affect the department’s ability to stabilize financial markets and collect sufficient tax revenue necessary to fund domestic and international priorities while minimizing economic harm. Like other federal agencies, Treasury will be confronting these issues at a time when it also faces a looming retirement wave. Indeed, 35 percent of Treasury’s workforce that was on board at the end of fiscal year 2007 will be eligible to retire by 2012. As a result, it will be important for Treasury to ensure it has the requisite skills and expertise to carry out its diverse responsibilities.

The Department of the Treasury

• faces a number of challenges establishing and managing the newly created Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is aimed at mitigating foreclosures, restoring financial markets, and protecting taxpayers;
• faces challenges in re-examining tax policies and priorities;
• is challenged because the nation’s tax system has profound effects on the economy as a whole and on individual taxpayers—taxes affect decision making throughout the economy and these decisions affect economic growth and future income and, thus, future tax revenues;
• is challenged as it develops data-based strategies to deal with a $290 billion net tax gap—the difference between taxes that should have been paid voluntarily and on time and what was actually paid;
• is challenged as IRS continues to modernize its information systems—the crucial modernization plan has been ongoing for several years with some successes, yet it continues to experience problems with implementation issues and critical management controls.