Nonsubstantive Change (Tax exempt forms Correction)

Nonsubstantive Change Request

Service Annual Survey

OMB Number 0607-0422

We are requesting a nonsubstantive change to the Service Annual Survey which the U.S. Census Bureau submitted back in the fall of 2018. We have revised the survey content of four 2018 SAS forms: SA-54170AE, SA-54170EE, SA-71110AE, and SA-71110EE. We are restoring the taxable revenue detail questions to the forms for tax-exempt EINs and alphas within the 7111 and 5417 NAICS industries. These questions were asked in prior years and were removed this year by mistake. In survey year 2017, we had 10 mixed taxable/tax-exempt forms for these industries regardless of their reported tax status. For the 2018 survey year, we split the 10 forms into 20 specific services forms for reporting units that are classified as either taxable or tax-exempt. We plan to utilize parameters in our data review that will flag and systematically zero out tax-exempt revenue for companies that are classified in our database as being taxable in survey year 2018 and beyond.

On form 54170AE and SA-54170EE, the changes will be found in item 6, where the three revenue detail questions that were removed are being added back (Item 6: Questions 1.a -3.c restored).

On form SA-71110AE and SA-71110EE, the changes will be found in item 6, where one revenue detail question that was removed is being added back (Item 6: Question 1 added back).

We require the restoration of this content because the tabulated revenue totals for industries covered by these four forms (SA-54170AE, SA-54170EE, SA-71110AE, SA-71110EE), would not be consistent to the previously developed time series. The missing revenue detail items could also cause the respondents to report the other tax-exempt revenue details incorrectly. This change impacts approximately 500 companies out of our survey sample of approximately 90,000. The restored data items have been previously reported by respondents and this will have no impact on respondent burden.

We discovered this mistake only recently and we require approval for this change on 2/22/2019 since we are scheduled to mail out for the 2018 survey year on 2/28/2019.