[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
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 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