International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 20-23 in case they were missed.
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation. More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law. CBP's duty drawback scheme under the Customs Act of 1962 allows exporters to receive a refund on customs duties they paid on imported products that are then used or incorporated into other products for export or remain unused until importation.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP’s weekend deployment of drawback, reconciliation and liquidation in ACE was “successful,” though some hurdles remain before systems are running as intended, CBP officials said on a pair of phone calls with trade stakeholders held Feb. 26. The deployment marked a “significant milestone,” being the last of the major scheduled “core” ACE deployments, said Deborah Augustin, executive director of CBP’s Trade Transformation Office. “At this time, all import manifest, cargo release, post-release and export functionality we had scheduled for delivery in 'core' ACE is now available in ACE,” she said.
Drawback filers will likely face a period of at least four to six months under interim procedures once drawback transitions to ACE over the Feb. 24 weekend, Michael Cerny of Sandler Travis said during a Feb. 23 webinar. Though CBP finished talks with the trade community nearly a year ago, proposed regulations drafted by CBP on drawback processes under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 continue to languish in the interagency review process, so filers will begin life in the new framework under a “draft guidance” issued by CBP on Feb. 9 (see 1802120020).
Coming new drawback processes under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (see 1802120020) are the source of "considerable concern," said Steven Baker, a lawyer who chairs the Customs Committee of the American Institute for International Steel, in a blog post. While the drawback processing is set to move to ACE on Feb. 24, "not all functions are supported in ACE, and as of this writing no regulations have been issued," Baker said.
CBP posted its cutover plans for the transition of reconciliation and drawback into ACE over the Feb. 24 weekend, it said in a CSMS message. The agency plans to turn off both in the legacy Automated Commercial System at 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 23, and any submissions to ACS after that time will be rejected, it said. The Feb. 24 deployment also includes liquidation, as well as new e-bond and Cuba import filing capabilities (see 1802080023).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 12-16 in case they were missed.
The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America recently called on CBP to address several holes that still remain in ACE. “While CBP has made great strides over the last few years in development of ACE, we are still in need of additional critical development to make ACE functional,” the trade group said in a white paper. An attached “Priority List” lays out the specific needs of the trade community and where CBP is in addressing them. The group raised similar issues in a Feb. 9 letter to Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner in the CBP Office of Trade, obtained by International Trade Today
CBP released its draft guidance for drawback changes under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act to help provide detail on interim policies between when the agency starts accepting claims and when regulations are finalized. Along with a draft of Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (see 1801290007) and business process documents, "this guidance document will serve as a reference for the tentative policy and procedures relating to major drawback change," CBP said. The agency recently said it did not expect to publish proposed drawback regulations by the time CBP starts taking TFTEA claims on Feb. 24 (see 1802020053).