Argentina will exempt certain capital goods and temporary imports from a fee increase that took effect May 7, according to a notice in the country’s Boletin Oficial. Effective May 21, capital goods imported for production of hydrocarbons from unconventional reserves, as well as other capital goods under certain programs and all temporary imports, will be subject to a zero percent “tasa de estadistica” (statistical fee). Argentina had increased the fee, which is similar to the U.S. Merchandise Processing Fee, to 2.5 percent for all imports beginning May 7 (see 1905090056).
Mexican customs will not enforce certificate of compliance requirements for imports of automobile safety belts at the time of entry into the country, said the Confederation of Mexican Customs Broker Associations in a May 15 bulletin. At this time, there are no accredited and approved certification bodies to evaluate conformity with Mexican standards for safety belts under Mexican tariff schedule subheading 8708.21.01, the bulletin said. The exemption will remain in place until one year after the policy was issued on May 2.
Guatemalan customs authorities will now allow multiple corrections to Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) certificates of origin, reversing a previous policy that only allowed COOs to be corrected once for imports from the U.S., the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a May 16 report. Implemented beginning April 26, the new policy “will help expedite the clearance of imported U.S. products, saving importers tens of thousands of dollars and make the import process more transparent,” the report said. Under the new policy, the COO can be corrected multiple times within 15 calendar days of written notification, which will also be provided by Guatemalan customs under the new policy.
The "annual interest rate for the third quarter of 2019 (July 1st 2019 to 30 September 2019) will be 1.6661," the Canada Border Services Agency said in a May 15 email. That rate affects "all importers and brokers who submit their B3s and AO notification of release queries using the CCS/CADEX system," the agency said.
The Canada Border Services Agency updated a memorandum to include information on the CBSA's expanded role in "enforcing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s aquatic animal health and plant health requirements that overlap with the Agency’s role respecting the Aquatic Invasive Species Regulations," the CBSA said May 13.
The Canada Border Services Agency is taking a closer look at surtaxes collected on "other US goods" as part of Canada's retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., KPMG said in a report. The agency has "come to the conclusion that the volume of imports of these products against the amount of surtax collected does not balance. So the CBSA [has] started to audit importers of all goods subject to surtaxes." There are more than 100 such audits underway in the Toronto area and "many more across Canada," KPMG said.
Argentina increased the value-added tax rate on certain imports, from 10 percent to 20 percent, according to a notice from Argentina’s tax authority and a May 10 report from KPMG. The change, which took effect April 17, will apply to taxpayers that cannot show that they are exempt from VATs or “in situations when the imported goods are regarded by the importer as fixed assets for accounting purposes,” KPMG said. KPMG said the change may cause some importers to “experience a substantial increase of VAT credit balances -- and these may be difficult to offset against output VAT.”