Costly penalties from inaccurate Importer Security Filing (ISF) reports can be mitigated by consolidating services within companies, while reducing other import-related concerns such as customs delays, Livingston International officials said during a Sept. 19 webinar. Chuck Stroupe, product manager for Livingston's customs brokerage, and the company's practice leader Jill Hurley, said integrating services within importers could reduce human error and rising compliance costs by streamlining the overall process.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 16-20 in case they were missed.
Members of the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) were meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill Sept. 24 to push them to move forward with several pieces of trade legislation. The meetings were part of the NCBFAA's Government Affairs Conference. At the top of the list of legislation brokers would like to see the next step be a customs reauthorization bill, according to a paper distributed by the NCBFAA to its members going to the Hill. Differences in the House over how the customs bill will treat antidumping/countervailing enforcement changes has emerged as a sticking point between Republicans and Democrats (see 13040911). NCBFAA "strongly supports passage of a robust customs reauthorization bill that provides firm direction to revitalize CBP's commercial trade facilitation and enforcement function," the paper said.
CBP is actively considering a recent proposal from the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association (NCBFAA) that would allow brokers to differentiate importers that a broker has gathered some basic information on, said CBP Acting Commissioner Tom Winkowski on Sept. 23. Winkowski, who spoke at the NCBFAA Government Affairs Conference, said "details of this proposal are being discussed," but "we believe the brokerage community is in a unique position to understand their clients' needs and business process and we want to leverage that expertise to enhance compliance." The NCBFAA submitted information on the proposal, called the "Broker Known Importer" program, earlier this year (see 13041124).
The Federal Maritime Commission is working with the State Department and the Maritime Administration in its review of China's Value-Added Tax (VAT) Program, said FMC Commissioner Rebecca Dye during the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference Sept. 23. The FMC said recently it would take a closer look at the VAT program and its potential negative impacts on international commerce between the U.S. and China (see 13091919). Dye declined to go into much detail on the inquiry because official discussions thus far have been during closed meetings. The issue is considered a law enforcement issue and will not go through the typical complaint process, she said. The agency has said it is "considering a range of options to obtain further clarity on the application of this new tax regime."
The Food and Drug Administration is close to finishing its high-level review of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with CBP that would allow the two agencies to share importer filing information through the International Trade Data System, said an FDA official, speaking at the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of American Government Affairs Conference Sept. 23. The MOU is now with the agency's Office of the General Counsel, which is working to address some “minor issues,” said Ted Poplawski, special assistant to the director in FDA’s Division of Import Operations.
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CBP released a list of the nine customs brokerages chosen to test CBP's broker importer security assessment (ISA) pre-certification program (see 13041623). The brokerages are:
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The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Cargo Release/Simplified Entry (SE) Status Notification documentation for Oct. 5 deployment was reposted online on Sept. 10 as a future ACE ABI (Automated Broker Interface) CATAIR (Customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements) chapter (here), CBP said. CBP said the ACE Cargo Release/SE input documentation was reposted to include a correction to the Carrier Code in the SE16 record, which should be listed as 4AN to accommodate various codes. The certification environment is now available to trade members for testing.