U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a general notice to advise Customs brokers that the Triennial Status Report Fee of $100 that is assessed for each license held by a broker whether it may be an individual, partnership, association, or corporation, is due during the month of February 2006 (i.e. by February 28, 2006) along with the corresponding status report.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a notice announcing that the 2006 annual $125 user fee that is assessed for each Customs broker permit and national permit held by an individual, partnership, association, or corporation is due by January 20, 2006.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP's) Office of Information and Technology has posted a notice to CBP's Web site containing a list, as of November 15, 2005, of companies/persons offering data processing services to the trade community for the Automated Broker Interface (ABI).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently issued an interim rule which, effective October 5, 2005, eliminated the textile declaration requirement and newly required the Manufacturer Identification Code (MID) for textile and apparel products from all countries to be constructed from the name and address of the entity performing the origin-conferring operations, etc.
In the matter of U.S. v. Pan Pacific Textile Group et al., the Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the principal is responsible for unpaid duties under 19 CFR 1592(d) stemming from fraudulent customs violations by his agent, who was the "importer of record" for certain tracksuits imported from China.
On its Web site, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provides information on the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) for each of the following types of C-TPAT partners:
House and Senate conferees agreed Fri. to exempt the universal service fund (USF) from Anti-Deficiency Act accounting rules for a year, and to bar the FCC from limiting USF support to primary lines. Senate Commerce Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) brokered the USF deal Thurs. night with House Commerce Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.), who wants to overhaul USF. Stevens thought he had sewn up the arrangement, but learned after the Thurs. conferees’ meeting that the primary-line provision wasn’t in the bill. “I didn’t sleep last night because of this amendment,” he told conferees during Fri.’s meeting, arguing passionately that the primary-line provision is essential in rural areas.
CTIA opposed an Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) petition asking the FCC to launch a rulemaking to set higher standards for telephone records information security (CD Aug 31 p4). EPIC said it had found 40 firms offering to sell telephone billing records or other confidential data. Telecom carriers should guard against unauthorized release of customer proprietary network information (CPNI) to online information brokers, EPIC said. CTIA opposed the request, saying wireless carriers “take extraordinary steps to protect CPNI and existing Commission rules more than adequately [address] CPNI security requirements.” It said its members already come under laws that include security requirements: “Additional rules aimed solely at CPNI… would be both duplicative and under-inclusive, yielding no consumer benefit while imposing unnecessary additional burdens on carriers.” CTIA said it “strongly supports” enforcement of existing law in regard to illegal access to CPNI. It said the FCC should cooperate with the FTC, which it said is “best situated amongst the regulatory agencies with possible jurisdiction to investigate the practices of online information brokers who purport to offer customer calling records that could not otherwise be obtained without customer consent or valid legal process.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site the October 2005 Customs broker exam and answer key.
According to a Textile Development Memo issued by the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA), CITA officials have advised that the U.S. will meet with China's negotiating team in Washington D.C. beginning Monday, October 31, 2005 for another round of formal negotiations aimed at reaching a bilateral textile agreement. (TDM, dated 10/28/05, www.usaita.com )