NEW YORK -- Clients are asking "how can I make a bad situation better," said Mary Jo Muoio, senior vice president for trade services for Geodis, a customs broker firm. Muoio, who was speaking on a panel on "Tackling the Trade War: Solutions for Companies Across the Supply Chain" at the Apparel Importers Trade and Transportation Conference, said some of those client questions and plans are not sophisticated. She quoted one client who asked: "If I send it to Taiwan and label it Taiwan, does it get me out of the 301?" She quipped, "Well, it gets you in jail."
The 2019 annual user fee of $144.74 for each customs broker district permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association or corporation is due by Jan. 25, CBP said in a notice. If a broker fails to pay the annual user fee by the published due date, the appropriate port director will notify the broker in writing of the failure to pay and will revoke the permit to operate. The 2019 fee represents an increase from last year's user fee of $141.70, as previously announced (see 1807310028).
A New York resident was sentenced to 30 months in prison over a scheme to import some $250 million in counterfeit footwear and apparel by way of importer identity theft, the Justice Department said in a press release. Su Ming Ling provided stolen identities to multiple customs brokers to bring in 200 shipping containers of counterfeit goods from China, DOJ said. Ling was charged last year (see 1709050044) and pleaded guilty in January. “With today’s sentence, Ling has been held responsible for illegally importing millions of dollars’ worth of knockoff goods that displace consumer demand for companies’ genuine products,” said Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Oct. 22-26 in case they were missed.
A customs broker is off the hook for a filing error that caused an importer to miss a sugar tariff-rate quota and pay more than $100,000 in duties. A Georgia state appeals court On Oct. 19 ruled against the importer, Peachtree Playthings, in a lawsuit that claimed damages for the broker’s gross negligence, as well as punitive damages and attorney fees. The power of attorney appointing the broker, D.J. Powers Company, was a contract for the broker’s services, and any lawsuit for the mishap had to proceed under the contract’s terms, the court said.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Upcoming changes to Canadian border processes will be a “game changer” for the clearance process, Kim Campbell of Mkmarin Trade Services said on Oct. 20. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) is set to be implemented by the end of 2020, allowing e-commerce customers to fill out their own customs declarations and eliminating the entry process for commercial importers, she said, speaking at the Western Cargo Conference. Other initiatives will allow truck cargo to cross the border without stopping, through the use of radio frequency ID tags and facial recognition software, she said.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- CBP is increasing staffing levels at its Office of Regulatory Audit to keep up with “the revenue on the table” from the recent imposition of new tariffs and the Trump administration’s push for more enforcement, said Tom Jesukiewicz, field director of regulatory audit’s Los Angeles office, at the Western Cargo Conference on Oct. 20.
The Food and Drug Administration released the new import filer evaluation procedures and some early feedback on the procedures in an Oct. 12 letter to the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America. "The process is now final and is the expected method of conducting filer evaluations by all our field offices," said John Verbeten, director of the FDA's Division of Import Operations. "Of course, with any new program, especially one national in scope, there will be an adjustment period and both FDA and the filing community should be prepared for hiccups; continuing our good communication will be key in getting the program running smoothly." The agency also provided a flow chart of how the evaluations work. The FDA said in September it began the new processes and it planned to provide details to the NCBFAA (see 1809250041).
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- CBP recently began its “360 degree” assessment of lessons learned from its “proof of concept” on the use of blockchain technology for NAFTA and CAFTA certificates of origin, said Vincent Annunziato, director of CBP’s Business Transformation and Innovation office, at the Western Cargo Conference (WESCCON) on Oct. 19. A report on the test should be done in November, though there’s no word yet on how the report will be released.
Changes to de minimis is the most significant change from NAFTA in customs administration and trade facilitation under the rewritten agreement, practitioners say, but exactly how that will work in practice is still unknown. Shipments from the U.S. or Canada into Mexico will not face duties if they are valued at less than $117, and will not have to pay tax if they are valued at less than $50. Shipments into Canada from NAFTA partner countries will be tax-free if valued under 40 Canadian dollars, and duty-free at under 150 Canadian. (Mexico's $117 limit matches C$150 at current exchange rates.)