ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME: An income tax term referring to the money a person earns minus
allowable deductions for certain expenses for travel, work, business, moving, etc.
ADMINISTERED PRICES: Prices determined by other than market forces such as those set by
monopolies, cartels, or governments.
ADMINISTRATION: 1. The management and direction of the affairs of governments and
institutions. 2. A collective term for all policy making officials of a government. 3. The execution
and implementation of public policy. 4. The time in office of a chief executive such as a president,
governor, or mayor. 5. The supervision of the estate of a dead person to pay taxes and assign assets
to heirs.
ADMINISTRATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: That aspect of administrative responsibility by which
officials are held answerable for general notions of democracy and morality as well as for specific
legal mandates.
ADMINISTRATIVE ADVOCACY: The presentation of alternative policies to an administrative
agency. This practice recognizes that public administration is a highly political process involving
significant differences of judgement. The most feasible course of action often emerges from the
competition produced when each interested group pleads the case it presents, whether that cause be
more funds to carry out agency policies, the survival of a particular program, or the desire for a more
efficient system of administrative decision making.
ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY: 1. A government organization set up to implement a law. 2. Any
civilian government body (board, bureau, department, or individual), other than a court or
legislature, that deals with the rights of private parties by adjudication, rule making, investigation,
prosecuting, and so on.
ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS OF TAXATION: Costs related to administering the tax system.
ADMINISTRATIVE DISCRETION: The ability of individual administrators in a bureaucracy to
make significant choices affecting management and operation of programs for which they are
responsible; particularly evident in separation-of-powers systems.
ADMINISTRATIVE DUE PROCESS: Term encompassing a number of points in administrative
law that require that the administrative procedures of government agencies and regulatory
commissions, as they affect private parties, be based upon written guidelines that safeguard
individual rights and protect against the arbitrary or inequitable exercise of government authority.
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: 1. That branch of law concerned with the procedures by which
administrative agencies make rules and adjudicate cases; the conditions under which these actions
can be reviewed by courts. 2. The legislation that creates administrative agencies. 3. The rules and
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regulations promulgated by administrative agencies. 4. The law governing judicial review of
administrative actions.