U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which began processing GSP duty refunds in early December for entries made during the period of January 1, 2011 through November 4, 2011, now states that refunds have been issued for all automatic refund requests (i.e., for entries that were filed duty-paid via ABI with the SPI "A"), except for ones that "failed" this refund process, which are being sent to the ports where entry was made to be manually processed. The target date for CBP completing the refund process for the SPI "A" failed entries is the end of February 2012.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection for Field Operations in New York has issued an Informational Pipeline stating that, effective December 16, 2011, the JFK Entry Branch is responsible for processing all Refusal Notices issued by the Food and Drug Administration on entry summaries where the Harmonized Tariff Schedule number of the merchandise in question falls under the jurisdiction of a JFK Commodity Specialist Team (CST).
The Trade Support Network has issued its November 2011 Monthly Committee Report, which states it has updated and resubmitted its request1 for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to add programming that allows non-ABI filers to generate post summary (pre-liquidation) amendments and corrections using the ACE Portal for entry summary data initially filed and accepted in the ACE Portal.
Government sources have confirmed that as reported in a September 2010 DHS OIG Information Technology Management Letter, routine maintenance of the Automated Commercial System (ACS) is increasingly difficult and expensive for a number of reasons, including its use of the COBAL programming language (a language that was created in 1959 and last revised in 1985).1 Sources add that a great deal of funding is also being used to sync ACS data with data in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made all sections of the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) user requirements available for download. CBP has posted a .zip file that contains 76 documents for Appendices A through U, Air In-Bond, Bill of Lading, Border Cargo Release, Drawback, Entry Summary, Importer Security Filing, Etc. Download all sections of ABI user requirements here.
Trade Support Network (TSN) Committee members are expected to meet on December 7, 2011 to discuss a number of Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) topics, including ongoing issues with Post Summary Correction (PSC), such as its functionality in the ACE Portal, the visibility of data elements for original entry summary filers, and the possibility of using the PSC framework to transition ACS drawback to ACE.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message to provide information on a Drawback Compliance Measurement (DCM) program, which it is currently testing in fiscal year 2012. After this one-year test period, CBP will evaluate the DCM procedures and results, in order to determine next steps. CBP notes that the test may result in an increase in requests to the drawback filer for constructed paperless entries.
The Trade Support Network has issued its October 2011 Monthly Committee Report, which indicates that discussions are taking place on issues related to the automation of the export manifest in ACE, as well as using ACE Post Summary Correction (PSC) for drawback. The October report also notes that the implementation plan for ACE e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (MI) has run into issues that must be resolved prior to opening the program for enrollment.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted the September 2011 Trade Support Network (TSN) Committee Report. The report provides details on the following TSN component activities (partial list):
At the October 4, 2011 COAC meeting, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials provided an update on the Automated Commercial Environment and the International Trade Data System since the previous COAC meeting in August 2011. According to CBP, ACE continues to be among the agency’s top business priorities. CBP officials also provided an update on its activities on M1, ITDS, Cargo Release, the September 2011 Trade Support Network Plenary, and ACE for Export Processing.