15 C.F.R. § 801.10 Rules and regulations for the BE–20, Benchmark Survey of Selected Services Transactions with Unaffiliated Foreign Persons.
Title 15 - Commerce and Foreign Trade
The BE–20, Benchmark Survey of Selected Services Transactions with Unaffiliated Foreign Persons, will be conducted covering companies' 2001 fiscal year and every fifth year thereafter. All legal authorities, provisions, definitions, and requirements contained in §§801.1 through 801.9(a) are applicable to this survey. Additional rules and regulations for the BE–20 survey are given in this section. More detailed instructions and descriptions of the individual types of services covered are given on the report form itself. (a) The BE–20 survey consists of two parts and seven schedules. Part I requests information needed to determine whether a report is required and which schedules apply. Part II requests information about the reporting entity. Each of the seven schedules covers one or more types of services and is to be completed only if the U.S. Reporter has transactions of the type(s) covered by the particular schedule. (b) Who must report—(1) Mandatory reporting. A BE–20 report is required from each person who had transactions (either sales or purchases) in excess of $1 million with unaffiliated foreign persons in any of the services listed in paragraph (c) of this section during its fiscal year covered by the survey. (i) The determination of whether a U.S. person is subject to this mandatory reporting requirement may be judgmental, that is, based on the judgement of knowledgeable persons in a company who can identify reportable transactions on a recall basis, with a reasonable degree of certainty, without conducting a detailed records search. Because the $1 million threshold applies separately to sales and purchases, the mandatory reporting requirement may apply only to sales, only to purchases, or to both sales and purchases. (ii) Reporters who file pursuant to this mandatory reporting requirement must complete Parts I and II of form BE–20 and all applicable schedules. The total amounts of transactions applicable to a particular schedule are to be entered in the appropriate column(s) on line 1 of the schedule. In addition, except for sales of merchanting services, these amounts must be distributed below line 1 to the country(ies) involved in the transaction(s). For sales of merchanting services, the data by individual foreign country are not required to be reported, although these data may be reported voluntarily. (iii) Application of the $1 million exemption level to each covered service is indicated on the schedule for that particular service. It should be noted that an item other than sales or purchases may be used as the measure of a given service for purposes of determining whether the threshold for mandatory reporting of the service is exceeded. (2) Voluntary reporting. If, during the fiscal year covered, the U.S. person's total transactions (either sales or purchases) in any of the types of services listed in paragraph (c) of this section are $1 million or less, the U.S. person is requested to provide an estimate of the total for each type of service. (i) Provision of this information is voluntary. The estimates may be judgmental, that is, based on recall, without conducting a detailed manual records search. Because the $1 million threshold applies separately to sales and purchases, the voluntary reporting option may apply only to sales, only to purchases, or to both sales and purchases. (ii) The amounts of transactions reportable on a particular schedule are to be entered in the appropriate column(s) in the voluntary reporting section of the schedule; they are not required to be disaggregated by country. Reporters filing voluntary information only should also complete Parts I and II of the form. (3) Any U.S. person that receives the BE–20 survey form from BEA, but is not reporting data in either the mandatory or voluntary section of the form, must nevertheless complete and return the Exemption claim included with the form to BEA. This requirement is necessary to ensure compliance with reporting requirements and efficient administration of the Act by eliminating unnecessary followup contact. (c) Covered types of services. Only the services listed in this paragraph are covered by the BE–20 survey. Other services, such as transportation and reinsurance, are not covered. Covered services are Agricultural services; research, development, and testing services; management, consulting, and public relations services; management of health care facilities; accounting auditing, and bookkeeping services; legal services; educational and training services; mailing, reproduction, and commercial art; employment agencies and temporary help supply services; industrial engineering services; industrial-type maintenance, installation, alteration, and training services; performing arts, sports, and other live performances, presentations, and events; sale and purchase of rights to natural resources, and lease bonus payments; use or lease of rights to natural resources, excluding lease bonus payments; disbursements to fund news-gathering costs of broadcasters; disbursements to fund news-gathering costs of print media; disbursements to fund production costs of motion pictures; disbursements to fund production costs of broadcast program material other than news; disbursements to maintain government tourism and business promotion offices; disbursements for sales promotion and representation; disbursements to participate in foreign trade shows (purchases only); premiums paid on purchases of primary insurance; losses recovered on purchases of primary insurance; construction services (purchases only); engineering, architectural, and surveying services (purchases only); mining services (purchases only); merchanting services (sales only); financial services (purchases only, by companies or parts of companies that are not financial services providers); advertising services; computer and data processing services; data base and other information services; telecommunications services; operational leasing services; other trade-related services; auxiliary insurance services; waste treatment and depollution services; and “other” private services. “Other” private services covers transactions in the following types of services: Language translation services, salvage services, security services account collection services, satellite photograph and remote sensing/satellite imagery services, space transport (includes satellite launches, transport of goods and people for scientific experiments, and space passenger transport), and transcription services. [66 FR 63919, Dec. 11, 2001]
Title 15: Commerce and Foreign Trade
PART 801—SURVEY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN SERVICES BETWEEN U.S. AND FOREIGN PERSONS
§ 801.10 Rules and regulations for the BE–20, Benchmark Survey of Selected Services Transactions with Unaffiliated Foreign Persons.
