[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 48 (Friday, March 11, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12869-12870]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-05510]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44
U.S.C. Chapter 35).
Agency: Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Department of Commerce.
Title: Quarterly Survey of Transactions in Selected Services and
Intellectual Property with Foreign Persons.
OMB Control Number: 0608-0067.
Form Number: BE-125.
Type of Request: Regular submission.
Number of Responses: 8,800 annually (2,200 filed each quarter;
1,700 reporting mandatory data, and 500 that would file other
responses).
Average Hours per Response: 19 hours is the average for those
reporting data, and 1 hour is the average for those not reporting data
or providing voluntary responses, but hours may vary considerably among
respondents because of differences in company size and complexity.
Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 131,200.
Needs and Uses: The Quarterly Survey of Transactions in Selected
Services and Intellectual Property with Foreign Persons (BE-125) is a
survey that collects data from U.S. persons who engage in covered
transactions with foreign persons in selected services or intellectual
property. A U.S. person must report if it had sales of covered services
or intellectual property to foreign persons that exceeded $6 million
for the previous fiscal year, or are expected to exceed that amount
during the current fiscal year, or if it had purchases of covered
services or intellectual property from foreign persons that exceeded $4
million for the previous fiscal year, or are expected to exceed that
amount during the current fiscal year.
The data are needed to monitor U.S. trade in services, to analyze
the impact of trade on the U.S. and foreign economies, to compile and
improve the U.S. economic accounts, to support U.S. commercial policy
on trade in services, to conduct trade promotion, and to improve the
ability of U.S. businesses to identify and evaluate market
opportunities. The data are used in estimating the services component
of the U.S. international transactions accounts (ITAs) and national
income and product accounts.
BEA received OMB approval for this information collection request
on December 22, 2015. (Previous notices may be viewed at
www.reginfo.gov; under the Information Collection Review tab, click on
``Search'' and use the OMB control number 0608-0067 to search for the
BE-125 survey instrument.) Subsequent to this date, BEA identified
additional changes to the data collected on the survey that would allow
BEA to align the country detail published in the ITAs more closely with
international economic accounting guidelines. As a result, the
following changes are proposed for the collection of information on
transactions in intellectual property:
Mandatory Schedules A and B will be expanded to collect additional
detail on intellectual property (IP) transactions. A U.S. person who
engages in IP transactions with foreign persons will be required to
distribute their receipts and/or payments according to the type of
transaction and the type of IP. The covered transaction types are: (1)
Transactions for the rights to use IP, (2) transactions for the rights
to reproduce and/or distribute IP, and (3) transactions for the
outright sales or purchases of IP. Reporters will be required to
identify the foreign country(ies) involved in the transaction(s) and to
distribute the amounts reported for each country according to whether
the foreign person is the U.S. person's foreign affiliate, part of the
U.S. person's foreign parent group, or an unaffiliated foreign person.
BEA estimates the proposed changes will increase the average number
of hours per response from 18 hours to 19 hours for those reporting
data. The reporting thresholds of the current BE-125 survey will be
retained. The effort to keep current reporting thresholds unchanged is
intended to minimize respondent burden while considering the needs of
data users. Existing language in the instructions and definitions will
be reviewed and adjusted as necessary to clarify survey requirements.
Affected Public: Businesses or other for-profit organizations.
Frequency: Quarterly.
This information collection request may be viewed at
www.reginfo.gov. Follow instructions to view the Department of Commerce
collections currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice
to OIRA [email protected] or fax to (202) 975-5806.
[[Page 12870]]
Dated: March 8, 2016.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2016-05510 Filed 3-10-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-06-P