Department of Treasury July 31, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) proposes to amend its regulations to require a statement of alcohol content, expressed as a percentage of alcohol by volume, on all alcohol beverage products. This statement may appear on any label affixed to the container. TTB also proposes to require a Serving Facts panel on alcohol beverage labels, which would include a statement of calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Industry members may also choose to disclose on the Serving Facts panel the number of U.S. fluid ounces of pure alcohol (ethyl alcohol) per serving as part of a statement that includes alcohol content expressed as a percentage of alcohol by volume. The proposed regulations would also specify new reference serving sizes for wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverages based on the amount of beverage customarily consumed as a single serving. However, TTB is not defining a standard drink in this document. TTB proposes to make these new requirements mandatory three years after the date of publication of the final rule in the Federal Register. The agency proposes these amendments to ensure that alcohol beverage labels provide consumers with adequate information about the product.

This document proposes changes to the regulations concerning the diversification requirements of section 817(h) of the Internal Revenue Code (Code). The proposed changes would expand the list of holders whose beneficial interests in an investment company, partnership, or trust do not prevent a segregated asset account from looking through to the assets of the investment company, partnership, or trust, to satisfy the requirements of section 817(h). The proposed regulations also would remove the sentence in Sec. 1.817-5(a)(2) that provides that the payment required to remedy an inadvertent diversification failure must be based on the tax that would have been owed by the policyholders if they were treated as receiving the income on the contract. These proposed regulations would affect insurance companies that issue variable contracts and would affect policyholders who purchase such contracts.