Trade Members at COAC Seek Clarity on CBP's Adherence to Electronic Payment Executive Order
As the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee voted at its June 18 quarterly meeting to pass along to CBP various recommendations offered by the subcommittees, CBP received public comments seeking clarification on whether the agency still will be processing paper payments after Sept. 30.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The comments refer to a March 25 executive order from President Donald Trump calling for payments made to the federal government, such as fees, fines, loans and taxes, to be processed electronically where permissible under existing law by Sept. 30, according to a fact sheet on the order.
One comment, submitted by Sandler Travis attorney Lenny Feldman, included the following questions: whether the Sept. 30 deadline applies to CBP and whether CBP will be eliminating paper payments to and from the agency; how CBP will implement electronic payments for all types of payments to the agency; how CBP will implement electronic payments to importers, drawback claimants, brokers and attorneys, and specifically those dealing with CBP Form 4811, which allows the importer of record to authorize a designated agent; and what the time table is for implementation of electronic payments for these various scenarios.
Another comment from a task force on electronic payments that's affiliated with the Trade Support Network (TSN) sought clarity on how this executive order would affect the trade and what the trade would need to do to comply with these changes by Sept. 30. The task force developed additional questions on this executive order that it wanted to bring up before the COAC.
In response to the comments, Dave Corn, trade co-chair for COAC and TSN member, said: "We have seen a lot of checks that have been intercepted and have gone astray, so really understanding the timelines and how the rollouts are going to happen, we understand with the change in deployment schedule, there are some changes to date that are out there. So, we're just trying to understand what everything means. Make sure that everybody in the supply chain -- importers, brokers, everybody -- understands the impact of what's supposed to happen for national security purposes, [and] also for efficiencies that can be realized across the board."
CBP confirmed that it heard the public comments.