Customs Brokers Should Expect More Audit Surveys, CBP Official Says
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- Customs brokers should be prepared for an increased number of audit surveys, said Tom Jesukiewicz, CBP field director, regulatory audit, in the Long Beach Field Office, while speaking at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
of America's annual conference May 1. "There will be a lot more broker surveys this year, I can guarantee you that." Audit surveys aren't actual surveys but are questionnaires that allow CBP to probe business processes related to potential problems. CBP has "ranked" all the customs brokers, and uses that ranking when deciding who to survey, Jesukiewicz said. "The survey is not random, unlike sampling," he said. "Somebody has an issue or pointed something out" and the survey is used to find whether the "supposition is even in the ballpark," he said. If it's pretty clear there's a problem, CBP will do an audit, whereas the audit surveys are used to tell the recipient "you're in an area that's a potential risk" and that "someone flagged you for this." Based on that "walk-through of transactions and the information that we get, we may or may not open an audit," he said.