416 Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014
Social security schemes Social security schemes are social insurance schemes covering the community as
a whole, or large sections of the community, and are imposed and controlled by
government units ........................................................................................ 2.101, A2.33
Sovereign wealth funds Created and owned by the general government for macroeconomic purposes, sov-
ereign wealth funds hold, manage, or administer assets to achieve fi nancial objec-
tives, and employ a set of investment strategies that include investing in foreign
fi nancial assets .........................................................................................................2.152
Special Drawing Rights Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are international reserve assets created by the In-
ternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and allocated to its members to supplement
reserve assets ............................................................................................................7.13 1
Standardized guarantees Standardized guarantees are those kinds of guarantees that are issued in large
numbers, usually for fairly small amounts, along identical lines ......... 7.201, A4.71
State governments State governments consist of institutional units exercising some of the functions
of government at a level below that of central government and above that of the
government institutional units existing at a local level ........................................2.90
Stock position A stock position is the total holdings of assets and/or liabilities at a point in
time ..............................................................................................................................3.36
Stripped securities Stripped securities are securities that have been transformed from a principal
amount with coupon payments into a series of zero-coupon bonds, with a range
of maturities matching the coupon payment date(s) and the redemption date of
the principal amount(s) ..........................................................................................7.152
Subsidies Subsidies are current unrequited transfers that government units make to enter-
prises on the basis of the level of their production activities or the quantities or
values of the goods or services they produce, sell, export, or import .... 5.146, 6.84
Subsidy on products A subsidy on products is a subsidy payable per unit of a good or service .........6.89
Swap contract A swap contract involves the counterparties exchanging, in accordance with
prearranged terms, cash fl ows based on the reference prices of the underlying
items .............................................................................................................. 7.162, 7.215
Synthetic securitization Synthetic securitization involves transfer of the credit risk related to a pool of assets
without transfer of the assets themselves, either through a securitization unit or
through the direct issuing of debt securities by the original asset owner .........A3.65
Tax credit A tax credit is an amount subtracted directly from the tax liability due by the ben-
efi ciary household or corporation aft er the liability has been computed ..........5.29
Tax expenditures Tax expenditures are concessions or exemptions from a “normal” tax structure
that reduce government revenue collection ...........................................................5.28
Tax refunds Tax refunds are adjustments for overestimation of taxes payable or the return of
amounts to taxpayers due to overpayments ...........................................................5.27
Tax relief measures Tax relief measures are incentives that reduce the amount of tax owed by an insti-
tutional unit ................................................................................................................5.28
Taxes Taxes are compulsory, unrequited amounts receivable by government units from
institutional units ...............................................................................................5.2, 5.23