A government levies property taxes and awards discounts for timely payment. How should the government report discounts that it expects will be taken? Report as expenditures in the year the taxes are levied Report as expenditures in the year the discounts are awarded for early payments received Report as other financing uses Deduct from the amount of taxes levied to determine amounts to be reported as property tax revenues and/or deferred inflows of resources

Answer: d. Report as other financing uses

Explanation:

Government considers individuals who pay their taxes early and usually offer them a discount, the government should report discounts that it expects will be taken by reporting as other financing uses, they should recorded as other expenditure are taken into consideration.

Deduct from the amount of taxes levied to determine amounts to be reported as property tax revenues and/or deferred inflows of resources

Explanation:

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), is the organization responsible for establishing standards uses by state and local governments.

Their accounting standards are not the same as those established by US GAAP for private businesses, and in this case, the local government must record discounts for timely payments in a different manner than most businesses use, since governments must use an accounting method similar to the net method where they include the percentage of discounts that they expect to award. Governments know that not everyone will pay on time and they all have statistics about approximately how many people do pay on time and receive a discount. So when they are preparing their revenue budgets they consider this percentage of early tax payers and directly reduce the estimated discount from expected revenues.