[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 68 (Friday, April 8, 2011)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Page 19710]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-8403]
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Proposed Rules
Federal Register
________________________________________________________________________
This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains notices to the public of
the proposed issuance of rules and regulations. The purpose of these
notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in
the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
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Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 68 / Friday, April 8, 2011 / Proposed
Rules
[[Page 19710]]
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Commodity Credit Corporation
7 CFR Part 1463
RIN 0560-AI12
Tobacco Transition Payment Program; Cigar and Cigarette Per Unit
Assessments; Correction
AGENCY: Commodity Credit Corporation and Farm Service Agency, USDA.
ACTION: Proposed rule; correction.
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SUMMARY: This document contains a correction to the Request for
Comments titled ``Tobacco Transition Payment Program; Cigar and
Cigarette Per Unit Assessments,'' which was published March 22, 2011.
The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is correcting an inaccurate
statement about the possible consequences of an alternative assessment
methodology.
DATES: We will consider comments that we receive by May 23, 2011.
ADDRESSES: We invite you to submit comments on the Request for
Comments, as corrected by this document. In your comment, please
specify RIN 0560-AI12 and include the volume, date, and page number
(March 22, 2011, 76 FR 15859-15864) of the issue of the Federal
Register in which the Request for Comments was published. You may
submit comments by either of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Mail: Jane Reed, Economic and Policy Analysis Staff, Farm
Service Agency, USDA, 1400 Independence Ave, SW., Mail Stop 0515,
Washington, DC 20250-0514.
Comments may be inspected at the above address, in room 3722,
between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, except holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jane Reed; phone: (202) 720-6782.
Persons with disabilities or who require alternative means for
communication (Braille, large print, audio tape, etc.) should contact
the USDA Target Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On March 22, 2011, CCC published a Request
for Comments (76 FR 15859-15864) requesting comments about the
calculation of assessments to fund the Tobacco Transition Payment
Program (TTPP) as authorized by the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform
Act of 2004 (FETRA) (7 U.S.C. 518-519a). CCC needs to correct the
information in the Request for Comments to remove inadvertently
inaccurate estimates of the impact of an alternative cigar assessment
methodology.
The Request for Comments on page 15864, in the first column,
contained a paragraph that stated that the possible impact of one
alternative might have been a twelve-fold increase with respect to
large cigars for 2010, and that the effect of this might have even been
greater for previous years because of a recent change in product mix.
That paragraph reads as follows:
But assuming a situation in which there are substantial small cigar
marketings in the actual ``small cigar'' tax category, changing the
Step B method would substantially change assessment levels. Even
applied to assessment data from the first quarter of 2010, it
appears that the alternative method of using cigar subcategories
would have increased the large cigar unit assessment as much as 12
times. That difference might actually have been greater before then
because in 2010, the shift in market volume from small to large
cigars had already begun.
The estimate of the impact of the alternative method is inaccurate;
an error was made in the calculations on which this paragraph was
based. A recalculation was made using 2006 data. The recalculation
demonstrated that had the alternative methodology been in use in 2006,
the alternative methodology would have increased the large cigar
assessment by roughly 80 percent, not twelve-fold, and would have
decreased the small cigars assessment (as ``small cigars'' are defined
for the purposes of excise taxes) by roughly 95 percent. For 2010, it
is estimated that there would have been only a slight change in the
large cigar assessment if cigar categories were broken out separately
at the Step A level. Therefore, this document corrects the Request for
Comments by removing the paragraph quoted above that contains the
inaccurate estimate of impact.
Signed in Washington, DC, on April 4, 2011.
Carolyn B. Cooksie,
Acting Executive Vice President, Commodity Credit Corporation.
[FR Doc. 2011-8403 Filed 4-7-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-05-P