CBP should announce mandatory ACE filing dates “as soon as possible” for any agencies or entry types for which mandatory filing dates have not yet been announced, said the Commercial Customs Advisory Committee (COAC) in a recommendation formally adopted at a meeting held April 27. Some importers surveyed say their brokers are waiting for the announcement of the deadlines, particularly for Food and Drug Administration data, before they start filing in ACE, while brokers need to know when agency data will be required so they can adequately plan their development and training efforts, said COAC members during the meeting.
CBP should take a new look at its penalty mitigation guidelines, the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) recommended during its April 27 meeting. A more "uniform" application of mitigation policies, which were last updated in 2004, is needed "in light of technology advances, trusted trader programs, and inter-agency enforcement partnerships," the COAC Trade Enforcement and Revenue Collection subcommittee said. "Particularly in cases of less egregious violations, CBP should enforce and mitigate on more of an account-based, as opposed to transactional approach," it said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 18-22 in case they were missed.
Now that all of the industry-focused Centers of Excellence and Expertise are fully operational, members of the Importer Self Assessment and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs should get a "higher level of service," the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) Trade Modernization Subcommittee said in a list of draft recommendations (here). The recommendation is among a wide range of recommendations planned for discussion at the COAC meeting on April 27 (see 1604250011). CBP's treatment of trusted traders should include "enhanced communication, accessibility and responsiveness (including updates and trends to increase or maintain compliance) with their National Account Manager (NAM) or other Center representative," the subcommittee said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP posted its agenda and some other agency documents for the upcoming Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting on April 27. Among the posted items are a detailed look at planned recommendations for changes to customs broker regulations (here). The document includes a list of the proposed changes with any new or deleted language highlighted some brief descriptions of the logic behind the proposals. A member of the COAC broker regulations working group recently previewed many of the recommendations (see 1604220023). The agenda is (here).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Filers of entries for several partner government agencies will now be able to submit agency-required forms through the document imaging system alongside their ACE cargo release submissions until ACE filing becomes mandatory for those agencies, said CBP in a CSMS message sent April 22 (here). “During the course of their pilots and until the ACE mandatory dates,” currently scheduled for this summer, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service "have agreed to allow" their forms to be uploaded in DIS, instead of submitted on paper, "in order for CBP to verify the PGA requirements have been met," said CBP.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Big changes are on the way for protest filing and reconciliation as part of the deployment of ACE post-summary capabilities currently set for October, said Celeste Catano of software developer Kewill during the annual conference of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America on April 19. Alongside new ACE systems for liquidation and drawback, changes to how protests are filed will allow lawyers to submit and keep track of protests, while increased automation of the reconciliation process will make life easier for brokers in several ways, said Catano.