Roll Call ($$) reports on a CQ MoneyLine study that found that over the past twelve years many companies, unions and other groups often made a mistake of reporting only its in-house expenses on lobbying disclosure reports. The Lobbying Disclosure Act requires that entities with in-house lobbying disclose all lobbying costs, including money spent on outside firms, even though outside firms must also separately disclose revenue they receive from the clients.

Some of the 1,200 lobbying entities that have potentially misreported their spending include the Motion Picture Association of America, which seems to have omitted more than $2.8 million from its disclosures through 2008. From 1998 to 2004, Anheuser-Busch reported almost $1.4 million less on its in-house lobbying disclosure forms than its outside K Street firms disclosed for the company. Many of the lobbying entities that have misreported their in-house lobbying figures say they are planning to refile.

According to the article, in 2009 only $12.5 million went unreported with the average of about $28 million in past years. Regardless, there is little in place as far as enforcement if there are deficiencies in lobbying reports, and few measures are in place to even catch it.