CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation as prescribed in 19 U.S.C. 1313(d). More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law.
An International Trade Commission study of foreign-trade zones, and how U.S. policy supports or undermines their effectiveness, gave some support for the argument free trade zone advocates have made about using FTZs as a staging area for de minimis shipments, but suggested that complaints about treatment under USMCA were overblown.
CBP is “aware” that some imports became subject to new superfund excise taxes on Jan. 1, but “at this time” is unable to process accelerated payment requests for such taxes, it said in a CSMS message April 21. The agency is working on internal procedures to process superfund drawback claims payments made to the Internal Revenue Service, but is “unable to ensure that a request for accelerated payment (AP) of any estimated drawback that may be claimed for such taxes is fully consistent with the requirements of the drawback law,” as is required for accelerated drawback, CBP said.
CBP’s interpretation of the drawback statute and programming of its ACE Drawback Module led to an "absurd" rejection of substitution unused merchandise drawback eligibility for an importer of civil aviation equipment that disregards the basic structure of the tariff schedule, Spirit Aerosystems said in a March 24 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade (Spirit Aerosystems v. U.S., CIT # 20-00094).
CBP reminded customs brokers that their powers of attorney must be updated by Feb. 17 to comply with the agency’s Part 111 customs broker modernization final rule, in a CSMS message Feb. 13. Under the final rule, “a broker must execute a POA directly with an importer of record or drawback claimant (client) and not through a freight forwarder or other third party to transact customs business on behalf of the client,” CBP said.
Electrical cabinets specifically designed to be installed in power control rooms are eligible for drawback, CBP headquarters said in a recently released ruling that CBP issued in September. The ruling followed a request for further review by SMS USA LLC following the denial of its drawback claims.
Correction: Customs brokers must restructure by Feb. 17 any powers of attorney they had previously executed with freight forwarders or other third parties to satisfy a new requirement that the POAs be directly executed with the importer of record or drawback claimant, CBP said in a CSMS message Dec. 1 (see 2212010026).
A 60-day “cushion” CBP is giving customs brokers to re-execute existing powers of attorney directly with importers of record and drawback claimants will “allow the brokers time to contact the appropriate party with whom they need to re-execute the power of attorney,” Jeannine Delgado of CBP’s broker management branch said during a Dec. 1 webinar held by CBP.
Customs brokers must restructure by Feb. 17 any powers of attorney they had previously executed with freight forwarders or other third parties to satisfy a new requirement that the POAs be directly executed with the importer of record or drawback claimant, CBP said in a CSMS message Dec. 1.
At least one broker on a CBP webinar on how new Part 111 broker regulations will be implemented continued to be confused about how to determine if the company has a "sufficient" number of licensed customs brokers to supervise employees who file customs entries.