The Railroad Retirement Act provides for payment of a supplemental annuity to a qualified railroad retirement annuitant. The collection obtains information from the annuitant's employer to determine (a) the existence of a railroad employer pension plans and whether such plans, if they exist, require a reduction to supplemental annuities paid to the employer's former employees and (b) the amount of supplemental annuities due railroad employees.
The majority of instances in which Form G-88p previously needed to be released were to obtain information about distributions from 401(k) plans. Because the RRB's General Counsel has determined that 401(k) plans do not qualify as private railroad pension plans, Form G-88p no longer needs to be released in these cases, greatly decreasing the overall number of forms that will need to be released annually from 750 to 300 (-450). In addition, we estimate that of the 300 G-88p forms, 200 will be completed using the new Internet version, which will take 6 minutes to complete compared to 8 minutes for the paper version. Overall, the amount of responses have been reduced from 760 to 310 and the burden hours from 101 to 34 (-67). We are showing the changes in reporting burden as a program change.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.