81 FR 12869 - Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 48 (March 11, 2016)

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 48 (Friday, March 11, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12869-12870]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-05510]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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