Supporting Statement for SSA-7163A
Supplemental Statement Regarding Farming Activities of Person Living Outside the U.S.A.
OMB No. 0960-0103
A. Justification
1. Section 205(a) of the Social Security Act (the Act) empowers the Commissioner of Social Security (the Commissioner) to make rules and regulations and to establish procedures necessary to determine an individual's rights to benefits. Section 203(c) of the Act requires the Commissioner to make deductions from benefits of entitled individuals who engage in remunerative activity outside the United States (U.S.) for more than 45 hours per month. In order to determine if someone is subject to this work test, the Social Security Administration (SSA) needs the dates of work, information to distinguish between employer and employee and information to distinguish a farm operation from a rental or farm property. All questions are designed to elicit a full description of the enterprise.
2. SSA uses the information collected on Form SSA-7163A-F4 when a Social Security beneficiary or claimant reports work on a farm outside the U.S., in order to determine whether foreign work deductions are applicable. Respondents are beneficiaries or claimants for Social Security benefits who are engaged in farming activity outside the U.S.
3. Due to the low volume of respondents and the Agency’s limited resources, the SSA-7163A-F4 is not currently scheduled for electronic implementation. Also, because SSA prioritizes those collections which have larger volumes of respondents for electronic conversion, we are not sure when this collection will be reevaluated for electronic implementation.
4. The nature of the information being collected and the manner in which it is collected preclude duplication. There is no other collection instrument used by SSA that collects data similar to that collected here.
5. This collection does not have a significant impact on a substantial number of small businesses or other small entities.
6. This information collection must take place when beneficiaries outside the U.S. reports work activity on a farm. If the information were not collected, then SSA would be unable to determine whether foreign work deductions are applicable. Therefore, the information cannot be collected less frequently. There are no technical or legal obstacles that prevent burden reduction.
7. There are no special circumstances that would cause this information collection to be conducted in a manner that is not consistent with 5 CFR 1320.5.
8. The 60-day advance Federal Register Notice was published on March 29, 2007 at 72 FR 14845, and SSA has received no public comments. The second Notice was published on June 27, 2007, at 72 FR 35293. There have been no outside consultations with members of the public.
9. SSA provides no payment or gifts to the respondents.
10. The information requested on this form is protected and held confidential in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 1306, 20 CFR 401 and 402, 5 U.S.C. 552 (Freedom of Information Act), 5 U.S.C. 552a (Privacy Act of 1974), and OMB Circular No. A-130.
11. The information collection does not contain any questions of a sensitive nature.
12. Form SSA-7163A-F4 will be used by approximately 1,000 respondents annually. The estimated average response time is 1 hour, for a total of 1,000 burden hours. The total burden is reflected as burden hours, and no separate cost burden has been calculated.
13. There is no known cost burden to the respondents.
14. The annual cost to the Federal Government is approximately $1,540. This estimate is for the cost of printing and distributing the collection instrument and for collecting the information.
15. There is no change in the public reporting burden.
16. The results of the information collected will not be published.
17. OMB has granted SSA an exemption from the requirement that the expiration date for OMB approval be printed on its program forms. SSA produces millions of public-use forms, many of which have a life cycle longer than that of an OMB clearance. SSA does not periodically revise and reprint its public-use forms, (e.g., on an annual basis). This exemption was granted so that otherwise useable editions of forms would not be taken out of circulation because the expiration date had been reached. In addition, government waste has been avoided because stocks of forms will not have to be destroyed and reprinted.
SSA is not requesting an exception to the certification requirements.
B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods
Statistical methods are not used for this information collection.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | May 2001 |
| Author | 673560 |
| Last Modified By | 177717 |
| File Modified | 2007-07-02 |
| File Created | 2007-03-09 |