Financial Statements of the United States Government for the Fiscal Years Ended September 30, 2020, and 2019

The consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government were prepared using GAAP. These statements include the accrual-based financial statements and the sustainability financial statements, which are discussed in more detail below, and the related notes to the consolidated financial statements. Collectively, the accrual-based financial statements, the sustainability financial statements, and the notes represent basic information that is deemed essential for the consolidated financial statements to be presented in conformity with GAAP.

Accrual-based Financial Statements

The accrual-based financial statements present historical information on what the federal government owns (assets) and owes (liabilities) at the end of the year, what came in (revenues) and what went out (net costs) during the year, and how accrual-based net operating costs of the federal government reconcile to the budget deficit and changes in its cash balance during the year. The following sections discuss each of the accrual-based financial statements.

Statements of Net Cost

Statements of Operations & Changes in Net Position

Reconciliations of Net Operating Cost & Budget Deficit

Statements of Changes in Cash Balance from Budget & Other Activities

Balance Sheets

Sustainability Financial Statements

The sustainability financial statements are comprised of the SLTFP, covering all federal government programs, and the SOSI and the SCSIA, covering social insurance programs (Social Security, Medicare, Railroad Retirement, and Black Lung programs). The sustainability financial statements are designed to illustrate the relationship between projected receipts and expenditures if current policy is continued over a 75 year time horizon.¹ In preparing the sustainability financial statements, management selects assumptions and data that it believes provide a reasonable basis to illustrate whether current policy is sustainable. Current policy is based on current law, but includes several adjustments. In the SLTFP, notable adjustments to current law are: 1) projected spending, receipts, and borrowing levels assume raising or suspending the current statutory limit on federal debt; 2) continued discretionary appropriations are assumed throughout the projections period ; 3) scheduled Social Security and Medicare Part A benefit payments are assumed to occur beyond the projected point of trust fund depletion ; 4) many mandatory programs with expiration dates prior to the end of the 75-year projection period are assumed to be reauthorized ; and 5) tax changes under the TCJA are assumed to continue beyond 2025, similar to the presentation in the FY 2021 President’s Budget. In the Statement of Social Insurance, the one adjustment to current law is that scheduled Social Security and Medicare Part A benefit payments are assumed to occur beyond the projected point of trust fund depletions. Assumptions underlying such sustainability information do not consider changes in policy or all potential future events that could affect future income, future expenditures, and, hence, sustainability. The projections do not reflect any adverse economic consequences resulting from continuously rising debt levels. A large number of factors affect the sustainability financial statements and future events and circumstances cannot be estimated with certainty. Therefore, even if current policy is continued, there will be differences between the estimates in the sustainability financial statements and actual results, and those differences may be material. The unaudited RSI section of this report includes PV projections using different assumptions to illustrate the sensitivity of the sustainability financial statements to changes in certain assumptions. The sustainability financial statements are intended to help citizens understand current policy and the importance and magnitude of policy reforms necessary to make it sustainable.

By accounting convention, General Fund transfers to Medicare Parts B and D reported in the SOSI are eliminated when preparing the government-wide consolidated financial statement. The SOSI shows the projected General Fund transfers as eliminations that, under current law, would be used to finance the remainder of the expenditures in excess of revenues for Medicare Parts B and D reported in the SOSI. The SLTFP include all revenues (including general revenues) of the federal government.

Statements of Long-Term Fiscal Projections

Statements of Social Insurance

Statements of Social Insurance and Changes in Social Insurance Amounts

Footnotes

¹ With the exception of the Black Lung program, which has a rolling 25-year projection period that begins on the September 30 valuation date each year. (Back to Content)