Monday Morning eBriefing

CBP has announced that Wednesday, April 25, 2018, will be the date of the next Customs Brokers License Examination. This will be the first of two exams scheduled for this year. The examination application deadline for the exam is Friday, March 16, 2018. All applications must be submitted online here. The cost of the exams is $390 and must be paid at the time of the application. The Pay.gov accepts credit card, debit card, and digital wallet (i.e. PayPal and Amazon Pay) payments. No additional fees are charged for any payments, and receipts are provided electronically.

Late last week, NCBFAA wrote to CBP with questions and comments regarding the upcoming February 24 ACE deployment. The communication included feedback received during its software coalition calls. NCBFAA's calls over these past few weeks have focused increasingly on the ACE deployment that includes drawback and reconciliation. NCBFAA raised several concerns in the letter, including the communication with the trade leading up to the release, the frequency of the technical calls and CATAIR updates, the lack of clarity and transparency surrounding updates of technical documents including the CATAIR and guidance documents, ongoing concerns with testing, the long term issues with lengthy drawback claims that may not be identified for years after this deployment, the system's stability and ability to handle the increased amount of data that will be coming through and the ongoing trade desire to have access to a war room and expanded hours access to the ABI reps. NCBFAA will continue to host software coalition and drawback committee calls in preparation for the February 24 deployment and will be constantly monitoring any issues that arise from the drop over the coming weeks.

Beginning April 7, all filings covered by the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) must comply with the electronic filing requirements in order for the entry to receive a "may proceed." The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had originally adopted an "informed compliance" approach as to not impede the release and clearance of shipments where a filer had incomplete information or was unable to submit data into ACE.

The NCBFAA Board of Directors would like to acknowledge the following 22 new members approved at the January 20 meeting in Baltimore, MD.

The NCBFAA worked with CBP on Thursday and Friday of last week regarding statement issues. We asked CBP for regular CSMS updates to keep the trade informed of the ongoing issues. It is our understanding that there have been other issues aside from what was outlined in CSMS 18-000095. In addition to statements not being received, we received reports of Line Item totals not totaling to the Statement Total, statements that were too large to be transmitted and then forced to split up, potential late PMS payments and other associated warning letters. We ask our members to provide any other problems experienced to Austin Miller or Tom Mathers so we may compile a log of the issues and then discuss with CBP to ensure all issues were properly captured and addressed. We recommend keeping copious logs and notes of any issues you may experience to provide mitigating evidence in case any penalties arise in the future.

The House passed a Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (H.R. 4318) by a vote of 402-0 --the first time since 2010. The package contains over 1700 duty suspensions or reductions on imported products not produced in the U.S. With the momentum of the unanimous House vote, supporters are pushing hard for early Senate action on the bill.

CBP has compiled a list of the most common issues users are facing after the Deployment G, Release 3B update that took place on January 6. This list is up-to-date as of January 12.

Last Thursday, CBP announced it will extend the timeframe for initial implementation of the in-bond regulatory changes for all participants for six months. CBP Officers will continue to accept paper CBP Form 7512 and input the data on the trade's behalf until July 2, 2018.

NCBFAA is encouraging our members to prepare for this transition in several ways. First, please consider working with your clients to move your entry filing dates up as much as possible to minimize the number of transactions CBP is processing in ACE over the deployment weekend. Please minimize the number entries, if possible, on the daily statements in order to control the environment as much as possible. We suggest you consider moving your statements that are due to be paid during the deployment week up early to avoid any miscues and non-payment. We also encourage you to reach out to your client rep to make sure they will be in the office during the deployment, and find out what your contingency plan should be if they will not be there. Find your best channel of communication with CBP ahead of the deployment so you will have the best chance of success in resolving an issue should one occur during the drop. We also recommend that you reach out to your software vendors to discuss their plans and how you can be the best partner possible for them during this deployment. Again, find a good communication channel with your vendor before the deployment so you won't have to spend precious time just trying to find the right person to speak with. Finally, you may consider sending a communication similar to the following to your clients:

Every year for the last 25 years, the NCBFAA thanks to its generous sponsor, Affiliate Member Roanoke Trade, has been able to offer a $5,000 scholarship to any individual employed by an NCBFAA Regular member firm (but not owners) and immediate family members.

On Tuesday, December 19, the NCBFAA held a webinar on the upcoming Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2018. To watch the webinar in its entirety, click here. For a PDF copy of the presentation, click here.

On December 18, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) mandate for the use of Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) in all commercial motor vehicles (CMV) went into effect. The mandate, found here, seeks to "improve CMV safety and reduce the overall paperwork burden for both motor carriers and drivers" through use of ELDs. An ELD automatically records driving time, monitors engine hours, vehicle movement, miles driven and driver location. The December 18 deadline was the last day drivers were allowed to use paper logs to monitor hours-of-service (HOS).

GSP will expire on December 31, 2017 and all goods previously eligible for duty free benefits under the program must be entered with the payment of duties and MPF. CBP has issued instructions (CSMS 17-00789) indicating that otherwise GSP-eligible importations should be flagged with the appropriate Special Programs Indicator ("A," "A*," or "A+"). CBP is developing programing to provide for the batch processing of refunds on all importations made with SPI "A" and duties paid in the event that GSP is renewed with retroactivity.

This week NCBFAA Executive Vice President Megan Montgomery attended the NCBFAA Legislative Committee meeting, which focused on the recently introduced bankruptcy bill and our industry efforts to support getting that passed, sat in on the TSN's Trade Leadership Call, staffed the Customs Committee meeting and tried to put all the loose ends on her desk to bed before the new year starts with some administrative work over the course of the week.

As you know, the FMC has initiated - at the NCBFAA's request - a proposed rulemaking that seeks to further ease regulatory requirements on NRAs and NSAs. The Association will be filing comments and we hope that the members will also individually file comments. For that purpose, you can review the comments you originally filed in the Docket P2-15 that supported the Association's petition in this matter. We will provide further information to assist you in drafting those comments.

On December 14, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) introduced the Customs Business Fairness Act (HR 4657) to provide relief to customs brokers for duties paid on behalf of importers who declare bankruptcy. Congressman King described the bill as "an effort to eliminate an unfair financial burden borne by customs brokers."

With 2017 rapidly coming to a close, we are looking at supporting our members through the turn-over into the new year. At the writing of this article, it does not appear that GSP will be renewed. NCBFAA has previously published instructions on setting the GSP preferences to have the date of presentation be the date of entry. We encourage you to work with your clients to maximize the savings under this program by timing your entries appropriately.

With year-end fast approaching and the holidays here, what better gift to share with someone (or yourself) than registering for the 2018 NCBFAA Annual Conference in beautiful Rancho Mirage, CA!

A second request to confirm the accuracy of the corporate information in the NCBFAA databases was sent to those designated as the primary contact to represent their company for the NCBFAA. For those who had responded to the original request, thank you; all others are encouraged to please take a few minutes to use the access credentials included in that email communication to review, and if necessary to update, your company's information. Even if you already responded, you may want to confirm that your updated information is correct.

As we have reported previously, the NCBFAA is a member of the Coalition for Fair Port Practices and submitted a petition with the FMC asking if the agency would issue an interpretive rule relating to the imposition of demurrage and detention practices. More specifically, the petition, which is docketed as petition number P4-16, asked the commission to require the carriers to extend free time in those situations when NVOCCs and VCOs are unable to pick up containers from the port due to unusual weather, port congestion, labor unrest or other issues beyond their control. That petition has of course been strenuously opposed by carrier and port interests