2016-05510. 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 [e-mail] or fax to [phone].

Dated: March 8, 2016.

Glenna Mickelson,

Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.