CBP's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) will next meet June 14 in Arlington, Virginia, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by June 9.
Licensed Customs Broker
Customs brokers are entities who assist importers in meeting federal requirements governing imports into the United States. Brokers can be private individuals, partnerships, associations or corporations licensed, regulated and empowered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Customs brokers oversee transactions related to customs entry and admissibility of merchandise, product classification, customs valuation, payment of duties, taxes, or other charges such as refunds, rebates, and duty drawbacks. To obtain a customs broker license, an individual must pass the U.S. Customs Broker License Exam. Customs brokers are not government employees and should not be confused with CBP officials. There are approximately 11,000 active licensed customs brokers in the United States.
NEW ORLEANS -- CBP doesn't want to revoke anyone’s customs broker licenses over the coming continuing education program requirements, Carie Samuel, Ascent Global Logistics vice president of regulatory compliance, said April 26 at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference. “They want us to be educated professionals who take this requirement very, very seriously because we asked for it. We wanted it and so they want us to take it seriously,” Samuel said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld CBP's decision not to grant credit to customs broker license exam test taker Byungmin Chae of Elkhorn, Nebraska, for two questions on the April 2018 exam. Judges Pauline Newman, Sharon Prost and Todd Hughes granted Chae credit for one of three questions he challenged, but that was insufficient to bring him up to the 75% threshold needed to pass the test.
Though only required for customs brokers that apply for a national license after CBP’s broker modernization final rule took effect this past December, CBP sees customs broker supervision plans as a “best practice for all brokers, and we would encourage all brokers to have a supervision plan in place,” said Shari McCann, director of CBP’s commercial operations, revenue and entry branch, on April 18.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP released a new “slick sheet” April 10 with guidance for customs brokers on what to do when faced with cybersecurity incidents. “The new resource makes recommendations on how to prevent, respond to, and recover from potential cyber-attacks on customs broker data systems, from proactively putting in place plans and preventative IT controls to resuming normal business operations upon system remediation,” CBP said in a news release.
CBP's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) will next meet March 29 in Seattle, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by March 24.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP deployed new capabilities for updating customs broker employee lists to its modernized ACE Portal on Feb. 2, CBP said in a CSMS message. New functionalities include an individual licensed broker indicator for broker employees, as well as the capability to “bulk upload” up to 200 employees at a time, instead of the previous 50. A “pending” status will be displayed to show the bulk upload is in progress. A new column on the broker employee list will now display an employee end date, and the portal will now check for duplicate Social Security numbers when creating an employee record, preventing the creation of new records with duplicate SSNs, CBP said. Brokers are now required to report all employees by Feb. 17 (see 2212190056).
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