CBP will allow for another 30 days for comments on the agency's proposal to collect information related to ACE protest filer accounts (see 1606130012), CBP said in a notice (here). CBP will require data on the organization, the ACE account owner and points of contact for protest filer accounts, it said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 15-19 in case they were missed.
CBP posted a new guide for creating protest filer accounts in ACE and submitting protests (here). Protests filed electronically must be filed through ACE starting Aug. 27 (see 1608080015).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP will begin enforcing on Nov. 28 the mandatory filing of type 06 foreign-trade zone entries and entry summaries with Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service Lacey Act data in ACE via the partner government agency (PGA) message set, though such data has technically been required since May 28, CBP said in an update to its list of ACE pilot statuses (here). A previous status update had said the mandatory date itself was Nov. 28, which appeared to conflict with CBP’s ACE schedule (see 1608120029).
Changes coming to the reconciliation program after CBP moves processing to ACE on Oct. 1 will “streamline” reconciliation filing, CBP National Reconciliation Program Manager Ace Kennedy said during a webinar held Aug. 19. Not only will filers be able to submit the entire reconciliation package electronically (see 1608120034), the system will also automatically populate fields for the underlying entry’s original value, duties, taxes and fees, meaning the filer no longer has to transmit that data, said Angelina Leyte of CBP's ACE Business Office. With the application process eliminated, the CBP system will now automatically verify the presence of the reconciliation bond rider required for reconciliation filing, so filers will no longer have to deposit a copy with CBP, Kennedy said. Filing will be opened up to all ports from the original 13, and will be processed by personnel from the Centers of Excellence and Expertise, she said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP will use the International Air Transport Association's messaging standard for advance cross-border data on exports out of the U.S., IATA said (here). The messaging data format, Cargo-XML, will make communication between ACE, "airlines and other air cargo stakeholders simpler and more efficient," IATA said. CBP "is working to reduce the considerable number of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) message formats currently supported to process international import, export cargo and cargo release information. IATA is assisting in this effort by permitting the US-CBP to publish to the minimal data file specifications for the IATA Cargo-XML messages."
CBP will soon publish an interim final rule amending its regulations to provide for changes coming to liquidation processes when liquidation is deployed to ACE on Oct. 1, a CBP import specialist said during a webinar Aug. 17. Beginning Oct. 1, CBP will start processing liquidations weekly every Friday, and posting notices of the liquidations electronically to a searchable database on the CBP website. The electronic bulletin notices will replace manual postings at the customs house as legal notice for importers, the import specialist said.
ACE AESDirect will undergo an outage from 10 p.m. Eastern Aug. 20 to 4 a.m. Aug. 21, the Census Bureau said in an email. Filers may submit shipments under the AES Downtime Policy, which must be filed along with any new AES transactions in ACE AESDirect after the system comes back online. Census advised AES Downtime export users to contact the port of export before filing, and in lieu of an AES Proof of Filing citation, to use the AES Downtime citation, consisting of the phrase “AESDOWN,” individual company Filer ID and date.