TSN Committees Discusses Bonds, CBP’s ITDS ConOps, Etc.

(TSN is a group of trade representatives who provide input into the design and development of modernization projects, such as ACE. CBP has been meeting with the TSN since May 2001 regarding the development of ACE. TSN consists of members of the trade community, including trade associations, importers, brokers, carriers, sureties, and others.)

The following are highlights of the reports:

April 2010

Surety Subcommittee Discusses eSTBs for ACE Entries

The Surety Subcommittee met recently to discuss the concept of eSTB, which is the emailing of a single transaction bond to the Revenue Division for ACE type 01 and 03 entries. Members of the surety subcommittee were concerned as this concept was not presented to the subcommittee for review or discussion prior to the release of the CSMS message (CSMS# 10-000060).

All members agreed that this is not an electronic system and there are no documented instructions on how this will work. There are very few ACE type 01 and 03 entries with STBs at this time. One of the subcommittee members is working on a work flow recommendation that will be submitted to the full subcommittee once it has been completed.

(See ITT’s Online Archives or 03/03/10 news, 10030345, for BP summary of CSMS# 10-000060.)

CBP Trying to Make ITDS ConOps Public

The CBP ITDS team is currently in discussion with the Office of Chief Council to get approval to distribute the full ConOps to the trade or, at the very least, a summary of the ConOps.

Product Code Issues Surfaced During ConOps Development

A CBP official indicated that one of the key issues that surfaced in the ConOps development is agency jurisdiction on import admissibility and classification of products. For many agencies involved in product safety the HTS code is not specific enough for their examinations and they are looking into using more specific product information codes to provide them with better data on which to evaluate cargo admissibility.

May 2010

Some ACE Account Management Reports Could be Eliminated

The Account Management Committee met to discuss the number of Account Management reports in ACE. There are a number of reports which are either underutilized or closely redundant to another report and discussions were held on the benefits of eliminating such reports. The committee plans to issue a draft recommendation/white paper to the other committees for review and comment.

(The Committee was previously asked to look at all of the ACE reports available to trade members with an eye toward reducing the number of standard reports. See ITT’s Online Archives or 08/31/09 news, 09083110, for BP summary.)

CBP Agrees to Provide PSC Indicator on a Query

The report from the Entry Committee trade workshop held on January 26, 2010 regarding Post Summary Corrections (PSCs) was released to the participants for review.

Several items have been clarified since the report was released. For PSC's filed by someone other than the original broker, CBP has determined that the entry should be visible to both the original entry filer and the PSC filer. CBP has also agreed to provide a PSC indicator on a query reflecting that a PSC has been filed with the following additional information in the query response: (1) entry number; (2) date the PSC was filed; (3) version number. CBP will not provide information pertaining to the PSC filer; content of the correction(s); the entry type; name of the importer of record. CBP also agreed to provide a liquidation status indicator on a modified ABI query (JX).

Committees to Discuss Automated Export Manifest Capability

The trade co-chairs of the Multi-Modal Manifest Committee and Export Committee held a teleconference to discuss cross committee efforts on developing a position paper for implementing an automated export manifest capability for all modes of transportation. The Export Manifest Task Group is developing a business case that will be shared and reviewed by the Export Committee.

(Reports posted 06/09/10)