CBP has not formally recommended any change to the planned mandatory use date for Automated Commercial Environment cargo release and entry summary filing, said Brenda Smith, CBP assistant commissioner for the Office of International Trade. "We have not made a formal recommendation to the White House today," said Smith in a July 30 interview. The top lobbyist for the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America recently said CBP has gone to the White House with a recommendation to extend the Nov. 1 deadline by as much as six months, and is currently awaiting a response (see 1507290016).
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is soliciting participants for its pilot of the ATF partner government agency message set in the Automated Commercial Environment, it said in a notice (here). Beginning on Aug. 19, the pilot will allow importers and customs brokers to submit ATF-required data elements, including program codes, category type codes, ATF category code, type codes and exemption codes, to CBP through ACE. CBP will then electronically transmit entry and release information to ATF. Requests to participate from importers and brokers may be submitted at any time before or during the pilot to Willliam Majors at William.Majors@atf.gov.
CBP may be moving toward pushing back the Nov. 1 mandatory use date of the Automated Commercial Environment for electronic entry summary and cargo release filing, said Jon Kent, a lobbyist for the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association. Kent spoke during an NCBFAA webinar on July 28. The NCBFAA and others groups told CBP in recent months that the planned ACE timeline may not allow for sufficient testing by industry and the government and that more time is needed (see 1507170020).
The Court of International Trade on July 24 denied a request from the government to impose penalties on an importer for negligently misclassifying entries of plywood (here). The government had asked the court to forego a trial and order the importer to pay $324,540 for declaring its plywood duty-free. However, the importer’s use of a customs broker raises questions as to who actually bore responsibility for the violation, and those questions must be decided at trial, said CIT.
The House likely won’t hold votes on Customs Reauthorization conference before departing the Capitol in the coming days for a five-week recess, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters on July 27. The House is yet to launch a conference, despite the Senate doing so in late June (see 1506250019). That means in order to finalize House action on Customs Reauthorization, the chamber would have to hold the procedural vote to go to conference and then a vote on the underlying compromise bill, known as a conference report (see 1507070066)
CBP outlined the agency's plans for refunding duties on entries eligible for Generalized System of Preferences treatment collected during the program's lapse. The agency answered some Frequently Asked Questions (here) and provided detailed information on the refund process (here). While some information on the GSP refund processing was previously released (see 1507200020), the agency hadn't released official guidance on the GSP renewal. The GSP reauthorization allows for retroactive benefits to be applied to eligible goods entered after July 31, 2013 through July 28.
CBP takes seriously the recent industry requests for revisions to the agency's timeline for requiring use of the Automatic Commercial Environment, an agency spokeswoman said. "CBP is aware of requests from the trade community to modify the approach to implementing mandatory filing of electronic entries and entry summaries in ACE on November 1, 2015," said the spokeswoman. "We are continually evaluating the readiness of all our stakeholders to ensure we implement ACE in a manner that makes sense and maintains momentum."
Industry pressure is growing for CBP to soften its deadline for Automated Commercial Environment entry summary and cargo release, as concerns grow over the readiness of the trade community for Nov. 1. On the heels of a letter from Trade Support Network leadership asking CBP to delay ACE requirements for some capabilities, other industry groups, including the Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations (COAC), are considering their own courses of action, with some already coming out in favor of a delay.
State and Commerce Department efforts to harmonize destination control statements would simplify the export process, but the State requirement for those statements on transportation documents burdens industry and accomplishes nothing, said the National Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Association of America in recent comments on the proposed rules. State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls should require control statements only on commercial invoices and contractual documentation, said NCBFAA President Geoffrey Powell in the comments. DDTC and Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security posted the NCBFAA and other industry comments (here) submitted in response to slightly different proposals from late May (see 1505210063).
The House is set to vote in the coming days to put in motion a conference on Customs Reauthorization legislation in order to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, said lobbyists in recent interviews. The verdict is still out on a range of policies that will directly impact compliance professionals and the broader trade community. Legislative conference is a notoriously secretive process, but lawmakers are expected to hammer out compromises on some major issues, including CBP evasion prevention and enforcement and Miscellaneous Tariff Bill process reforms.