Taxpayers cheated out of royalty payments by gas, oil companies, says GAO report On the heels of revelations about the drugs-and-sex culture plaguing the federal collection of oil and gas royalties comes a new report that says a flawed accounting system could be costing taxpayers billions. The Government Accountability Office found that slipshod operations at the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service have hampered the agency's ability to keep track of how much energy companies are extracting from public lands, including those in eastern Utah. Accurate production reports are necessary for proper collection of royalties. The GAO said that because the computerized accounting systems at Denver-based MMS are inadequate, billions of dollars may be slipping through bureaucratic fingers. But how much taxpayer money might have been lost cannot be calculated because the accounting programs don't allow for that kind of backtracking, GAO spokesman Frank Rusco said Monday...They can't tell how bad it is because they can't measure what's been done. By all means, let's transfer more assets to these folks.