Department of the Treasury December 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). The IRS is soliciting comments concerning information collection requirements related to income, excise, and estate and gift taxes; effective dates and other issues arising under the employee benefit provisions of the tax reform act of 1984.

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). Currently, the IRS is soliciting comments concerning Form 13704, Health Coverage Tax Credit Registration Update Form.

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). The IRS is soliciting comments concerning information collection requirements related to bad debt reserves of banks.

The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (``OFAC'') is amending the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations by issuing two general licenses that authorize all activities and transactions relating to the petroleum and petrochemical industries in the Republic of South Sudan and related financial transactions and the transshipment of goods, technology, and services through Sudan to or from the Republic of South Sudan and related financial transactions. OFAC also is amending an existing general license to broaden its authorization with respect to the importation of certain Sudanese- origin services and to add an authorization for activities related to Sudanese persons' travel to the United States. Lastly, OFAC is making technical changes to the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations, including changes to reflect the formation by Southern Sudan of the independent state of the Republic of South Sudan on July 9, 2011.

This document contains corrections to advance notice of proposed rulemaking (REG-133223-08) that describes the rules the Treasury Department and IRS are considering proposing relating to the determination of whether a plan of an Indian Tribal government is a governmental plan within the meaning of section 414(d) and contains an appendix that includes a draft notice of proposed rulemaking on which the Treasury Department and IRS invite comments from the public. The document was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 (76 FR 69188).

This document describes a correction to final and temporary regulations (TD 9554) extending the exceptions from taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (``FICA'') and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (``FUTA'') under sections 3121(b)(3) (concerning individuals who work for certain family members), 3127 (concerning members of religious faiths), and 3306(c)(5) (concerning persons employed by children and spouses and children under 21 employed by their parents) of the Internal Revenue Code (``Code'') to entities that are disregarded as separate from their owners for Federal tax purposes. The temporary regulations also clarify the existing rule that the owners of disregarded entities, except for qualified subchapter S subsidiaries, are responsible for backup withholding and related information reporting requirements under section 3406. These regulations were published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 (76 FR 67363).

This document contains temporary regulations that provide guidance on the tax treatment of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities issued with more than a de minimis amount of premium. The text of these temporary regulations also serves as the text of the proposed regulations (REG-130777-11) set forth in the Proposed Rules section in this issue of the Federal Register.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) proposes to replace the current four report forms used by distilled spirits plants to report their operations with two new report forms that would be submitted on a monthly or quarterly basis. This proposal would streamline the reporting process and would result in savings for the industry and for TTB by significantly reducing the number of reports that must be completed and filed by industry members and processed by TTB.

This final rule amends the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations to reflect the imposition of import restrictions on certain archaeological and ethnological material from the Hellenic Republic (Greece). These restrictions are being imposed pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Greece that has been entered into under the authority of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act in accordance with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The final rule amends CBP regulations by adding Greece to the list of countries for which a bilateral agreement has been entered into for imposing cultural property import restrictions. The final rule also contains the designated list that describes the types of archaeological and ethnological articles to which the restrictions apply.

This final rule amends the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations to reflect an extension of import restrictions on certain archaeological and ethnological material from Bolivia. The restrictions, which were originally imposed by Treasury Decision (T.D.) 01-86 and last extended by CBP Dec. 06-26, are due to expire on December 4, 2011. The Acting Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, United States Department of State, has determined that conditions continue to warrant the imposition of import restrictions. Accordingly, these import restrictions will remain in effect for an additional 5 years, and the CBP regulations are being amended to reflect this extension through December 4, 2016. These restrictions are being extended pursuant to determinations of the United States Department of State made under the terms of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act in accordance with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. T.D. 01-86 contains the Designated List of archaeological and ethnological material from Bolivia to which the restrictions apply.