05-14462. Departmental Offices: Proposed Collections: Comment Requests

ACTION:

Notice and request for comments.

SUMMARY:

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on revisions of an information collection that are proposed for approval by the Office of Management and Budget. The Office of International Affairs within the Department of the Treasury is soliciting comments concerning Treasury International Capital Forms CQ-1 and CQ-2, Financial and Commercial Liabilities to, and Claims on, Unaffiliated Foreigners.

DATES:

Written comments should be received on or before September 20, 2005 to be assured of consideration.

ADDRESSES:

Direct all written comments to Dwight Wolkow, International Portfolio Investment Data Systems, Department of the Treasury, Room 4410-1440NYA, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington DC 20220. In view of possible delays in mail delivery, please also notify Mr. Wolkow by e-mail ([e-mail]), Fax [phone]) or telephone [phone]).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Copies of the proposed forms and instructions are available on the Treasury's TIC Web page for forms, http://www.treas.gov/​tic/​forms.html. Requests for additional information should be directed to Mr. Wolkow.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Title: Treasury International Capital Form CQ-1, Financial Liabilities to, and Claims on, Foreigners; and Treasury International Capital Form CQ-2, Commercial Liabilities to, and Claims on, Unaffiliated Foreigners.

OMB Number: 1505-0024.

Abstract: Forms CQ-1 and CQ-2 are part of the Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting system, which is required by law (22 U.S.C. 286f; 22 U.S.C. 3103; EO 10033; 31 CFR 128), and is designed to collect timely information on international portfolio capital movements. Forms CQ-1 and CQ-2 are quarterly reports filed by nonbanking and non-securities broker and dealer enterprises in the U.S. to report their international portfolio transactions with unaffiliated foreigners. This information is necessary for compiling the U.S. balance of payments accounts and the U.S. international investment position, and for use in formulating U.S. international financial and monetary policies.

Current Actions: (a) In Form CQ-1, eliminate section B, which captures foreign affiliate positions of insurance underwriting subsidiaries and financial intermediaries; (b) For Form CQ-2, shorten the submission date for filing from 45 days to no later than 30 calendar days following the report as-of date. This action is necessary to make that information timely enough for use with all other quarterly TIC data; (c) The list for reporting the location of foreign counterparties on all TIC reporting forms will be increased to a total of roughly 245 countries and other areas. This longer list is essentially the same as the lists used for years in the TIC benchmark and annual reports, and thus will establish a uniform list of countries/areas consistent across all TIC reporting forms. Comments from TIC respondents indicate that their modern computerized database systems can easily produce all TIC reports for this longer list of countries/areas. This change will apply to the monthly and quarterly B-forms, C-forms, Form D and Form S and will allow the semiannual B-forms to be eliminated (see action b below). This action is expected to result in an overall reduction in burden for TIC respondents as a whole, as well as satisfying Treasury's need for more timely information on a larger number of countries. Comments from TIC respondents indicate that the combination of the longer uniform country list and the virtual elimination of rows for “other countries” will reduce significantly the total burden from all TIC reports, including the burdens of cross-checking information, responding to inquiries from data compilers, and making revisions to data reports; and (d) these changes will be effective beginning with the reports as of June 30, 2006.

Type of Review: Revision of a currently approved collection.

Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.

Forms CQ-1 and CQ-2 (1505-0024).

Estimated Number of Respondents: 400.

Estimated Average Time per Respondent: Four and one/quarter (4.25) hours per respondent per filing. This average time varies from 4.5 hours for the approximately 190 CQ-1 respondents to 4.0 hours for the approximately 210 CQ-2 respondents.

Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 6,800 hours, based on 4 reporting periods per year.

Request for Comments: Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget approval. All comments will become a matter of public record. The public is invited to submit written comments concerning: (a) Whether Forms CQ-1 and CQ-2 are necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Office, including whether the information will have practical uses; (b) the accuracy of the above estimate of the burdens; (c) ways to enhance the quality, usefulness and clarity of the information to be collected; (d) ways to minimize the reporting and/or record keeping burdens on respondents, including the use of information technologies to automate the collection of the data; and (e) estimates of capital or start-up costs of operation, maintenance and purchase of services to provide information.

Dwight Wolkow,

Administrator, International Portfolio Investment Data Systems.