90-Day Duty, Tax, and Fee Postponement
On April 22nd, 2020 CBP is publishing the 90 Day postponement for certain estimated duties, taxes, and fees. As CBP does have a scheduled publication date, BOC wanted to notify our Importers. Below is the link to the Federal Register document. Please review the FR notice tomorrow, to ensure compliance.
CSMS #42423171 – COVID-19 – 90 Day Postponement of Payment for the Deposit of Certain Estimated Duties, Taxes, and Fees
BOC will need to receive the below statement on your company’s letterhead and signed by a corporate officer.
(Company name, IRS#) confirms that it satisfies CBP requirements for the 90-day postponement of payment for imports duty, taxes and fees. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, local, state and national restrictions have caused significant financial hardship, (Company name) has an order from competent governmental authority. (Company name) has verified that our operation is fully or partially suspended during March 2020 or April 2020. The gross receipts for March 13-31, 2020 or April 2020 are less than 60 percent of the gross receipts for the comparable period in 2019. We have verified that our entries are not antidumping duties, countervailing duties, section 232 tariffs for steel and aluminum imports, section 201 tariff rate quotas for solar cells and panels and/or section 301 tariff for products of China.
REQUIREMENTS / ELIGIBLE & NOT ELIGIBLE PRODUCT
- Importer must have significant financial hardship
- If operations fully or partially suspended during March 2020 OR April 2020, the suspended operations must be due to orders from a competent government authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meeting due to COVID-19.
- AND such suspension resulted in the gross receipts for March 13-31, 2020 OR April 2020 are less than 60% of the gross receipts for the comparable period in 2019
- AND eligible importers do not need to file documents with CBP to be eligible for this relief
- BUT must maintain documentation as part of its books
- AND records establishing that it meets the requirements for relief
- ALSO CBP may conduct a review of documentation at a future date to ensure compliance.
- Temporary postponement does not apply to any entry / withdrawal from warehouse for consumption
- No antidumping duties
- No countervailing duties
- No section 232 tariffs for steel and aluminum imports
- No section 201 tariff rate quotas for solar cells and panels
- No section 301 tariff for products of China
- Entries NOT eligible if the entry summary includes merchandise subject to ADD, CVD, section 232, section 201 and section 301.
The importer will need to take the commercial invoice and document the commodities NOT eligible for the 90-day postponement. BOC will not be responsible and will be charging two entry fees for the two separate entries. BOC is charging a $ 150.00 flat clearance fee for the commodities not under the 90-day postponement, and the importer’s clearance fee for the consumption entries that quality for the 90 days.
- Separate entries pursuant to 19 CFR 141.52 has been authorized by CBP
- Only applies to entries NOT yet filed
- If an importer has merchandise not eligible and merchandise eligible on the same AMS B/L, two separate entries can be made
PAYMENT TIMEFRAMES
Estimated duties, taxes, and fees paid on single pay basis or Daily Statement may be postponed up to 90 days from the payment due date.
Example:
Original Due Date 90-Day Postponement
April 30, 2020 July 29, 2020
Estimated Internal Revenue Tax paid via the deferred tax schedule may be postponed up to three months from the payment due date.
Example:
Original Due Date 3 Month Postponement
April 29, 2020 July 29, 2020
May 14, 2020 August 14, 2020
Estimated duties and fees paid via Periodic Monthly Statement (PMS) may be postponed up to three months, as defined by the 15th working day of the third month.
Example:
Original Due Date 3 Month Postponement
April 21, 2020 July 22, 2020
May 21, 2020 August 21, 2020
PAYMENT INSTRUCTIONS
The authorization of 90 additional calendar days without penalty for payment applies whether an entry summary is paid as a single-pay check, ACH Daily and Monthly Statement, or PMS.
Importers/Filers who choose to take advantage of the additional 90 calendar days for the payment of the deposit of estimated duties, taxes and fees have the responsibility to schedule payments accordingly. CBP will not adjust statement dates.
Effective Sunday, April 19, 2020, CBP is deploying updates to the ACE SU statement transaction to give the importer/filer more flexibility when removing entries from a PMS:
- Entries removed from statement no longer have to be submitted as single pay. The importer/filer can reschedule entries that were removed from one statement for another statement.
- The importer/filer can now remove Remote Location Filing (RLF) entries from a PMS, including the April PMS, and schedule those entries for another statement.
- The importer/filer can now schedule the month further out than two months, so that they do not have to further push the Periodic Daily Statement (PDS) date. This will allow the importer/filer to file an entry with an April PDS date and schedule for the July monthly statement.
