The US Postal Service, despite being in the midst of a supposed financial “crisis”, is still showing a fiscal year to date profit of $105 million as of January 31. USPS revenue for the first four months of the fiscal year was $23 billion, while actual operating expenses were $22.9 billion.

So in terms of actual cash, the USPS is doing pretty well. Unfortunately, as a result of the 2006 PAEA law, the USPS is required to record $4.5 billion in losses that don’t actually exist. $532 million of that is what’s identified as “non-cash adjustments; the impact of discount and inflation charges and the actuarial revaluation of existing [OWCP] cases”. The rest, just over $4 billion is the infamous “Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund” charge. The USPS hasn’t actually paid the Treasury that much this year- the full annual payment isn’t due until September 30. But the USPS is required to show a portion of the charge on its books each month. Even at the end of the fiscal year, of course, any transaction would be a strictly paper exercise, with the Treasury loaning the USPS billions of dollars that the USPS would immediately loan back to the Treasury. Welcome to the mysterious world of Congressional accounting!

USPS Preliminary January 2012 Financials.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 11:34 pm and is filed under politics, postal, postal finances. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.