Tag: protest

Renewed China Tariff/Section 301 Exclusions March 2022

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced reinstated product exclusions that are valid for entries liquidated from October 12, 2021 and will continue to be excluded through December 31, 2022.

The reinstated exclusions are available for any product that meets the description in the product exclusion set out in the digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) subheadings and product descriptions in the Annex to the Federal Register notice, set to be published on March 28, 2022, but available at this link (see pages 3 through 26).

I expect that the USTR will make new opportunities for new exclusions requests to be filed in the lead-up to the November midterm elections.

We File Protests for Section 301 Duty Refunds

If you need to file protests to get refunds of Section 301 duties, Great Lakes Customs Law can help. We’ve filed protests thousands of entries over the years, and have been successful in getting our clients refunds for Section 301 duties through protest exclusions. We are happy to discuss your needs, the level of organization required to successfully obtain refunds, and provide some transparent pricing for our services. Please contact us to speak to Jason Wapiennik, customs attorney.

CBP proposes electronic notice of liquidation

A few years ago, U.S. Customs & Border Protection began posting notice of property seizures and their intent to forfeit the property on forfeiture.gov. Previously, CBP posted those notices at the customhouse and in newspaper publications.

Physical Posting of Bulletin Notices of Liquidation

Similarly, anytime an entry was liquidated CBP had to post the bulletin notices of liquidation in paper format at the port office, historically called the customhouse.  Liquidation is the legal event which finalizes the amount of duties owed to CBP. To protest an entry (that is, officially challenge customs rate, duty, value, etc.), a protest must be filed within 180 days of liquidation. Thus, for an importer or their customs lawyer, knowing the exact date of liquidation is extremely important.

In addition to posting the bulletin notices of liquidation at the customhouse, CBP would provide courtesy notices of liquidation or notices of suspension or extension of liquidation, by mail.

Proposed rules mark an end of physical posting of bulletin notices of liquidation

CBP is updating this antiquated method of providing official notice of the liquidation of an entry. It will instead be posting those notices to their website, www.cbp.gov, in searchable format. This will be a tremendous benefit to importers, and their customs attorneys, who typically had to physically go to the port office and inspect, or in most cases – request to inspect, pages of information to locate a single entry and its date of liquidation, if they need to know the date of liquidation for protesting an entry.

CBP is taking this action by proposing to update it’s regulations, with comments due by November 14, 2016. You can read all about this proposed rulemaking by reading the entry in the Federal Register.

This is a change that this customs lawyer welcomes, with open arms.