CBP Adds "PGA Indicator" Records to ABI's HTS Update & Query in ACS
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is announcing that Participating Government Agency (PGA) indicator programming has been added to ACS to enhance its ABI HTS Update and Query functionality. However, no tariff numbers have a PGA indicator yet (for those tariff numbers that call for one), so there will be no "VL" or "WL" records sent out to indicate that a tariff number has a PGA requirement.
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Once fully implemented, the new "VL" conditional record identifier (output) will display PGA indicators associated with a HTS Update tariff number and the new “WL” record identifier (output) will display PGA indicators associated with a HTS Query tariff number. (See ITT's Online Archives 11082921 for summary of CSMS #11-000202, which contained the announcement of these programming changes and the record formats for the trade to use.)
(Note that CBP currently has Other Government Agency (OGA) "flags" in the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) that are limited to the Automated Commercial System (ACS), for a number of agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), etc.
See ITT's Online Archives 11101720 for summary stating that CBP will only make the Document Imaging System (DIS) and the PGA Message Set available to ACE summary filers. Note that CBP sources say that these PGA indicators are flags in the HTS file that will be able to be queried by ABI filers. The PGA message set is different. )