CBP Starts Retroactive Billing for Increased MPF

June 18, 2012 by Tim Warren|Top News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin retroactive billing for merchandise entered between October 1 and November 4, 2011, with the increased merchandise processing fee, said CBP in a June 15 CSMS message. The billing will be done by the CBP Office of International Trade, said CBP. CBP said it began the scripting of liquidate entries last week and expects to liquidate approximately 20,000 entries per week but doesn't have an estimated completion date.

CBP to Bill $20 or More

The Entry, Summary, and Drawback Branch (ESD) is scripting liquidate entries with a future liquidation date to generate a bill for the additional MPF due. Differences of less than $20 are de minimis, and as such will not be processed for retroactive MPF. Entries which are flagged for reconciliation will have the MPF increase accounted for via the reconciliation entry, said CBP.

(See ITT’s Online Archives, 11090916 for summary stating that with a .3464% MPF, the MPF cap would be reached on formal entries valued at about $140,000 and up, and the MPF minimum would be paid on formal entries valued at approximately $7,200 or less.)

Once the scripting begins, ESD will post weekly results on CBPnet Secure, said CBP. Entries for which CBP system successfully generated a bill will be listed in the file titled, “MPF Increases." This list is being provided to the ports for use as back-up documentation in relation to the B12 report (Bulletin Notice of Entries Liquidated -- by Batch and Sequence). Entries that failed the scripting process will be available via the same link, in the file titled, “MPF Script Errors”. Ports must manually liquidate all entries that are included in this list.

The new fee was established through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011 (TAA), retroactively effective on October 1, 2011. CBP said while ACS began accepting the new MPF rate on November 5, 2011, CBP could not begin the retroactive billing process for merchandise entered between October 1, 2011 and November 4, 2011 until the refund processing was completed for the Generalized System of Preferences, Andean Trade Preference Act, and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act retroactive renewals.

Minimum and Maximum MPF Remain

The new laws did not change the minimum MPF of $25 for formal entries, nor the maximum MPF of $485 for formal entries. This means that a greater number of shipments will be above the $25 minimum, and a greater number of shipments will reach the $485 cap.

Examples of rate changes under the new MPF for formal entries include (new and old listed):

$5,000 entry would pay $25 minimum (same $25 minimum)
$7,500 entry would pay $26 (from $25 minimum)
$10,000 entry would pay $35 (from $25 minimum)
$25,000 entry would pay $87 (from $53)
$50,000 entry would pay $173 (from $105)
$100,000 entry would pay $346 (from $210)
$120,000 entry would pay $416 (from $252)
$150,000 entry would pay $485 cap (from $315)
$200,000 entry would pay $485 cap (from $420)
$225,000 entry would pay $485 cap (from $473)
$250,000 entry would pay $485 cap (same $485 cap)

Contact -- Terry Monroy, International Trade Specialist, Office of International Trade at terry.monroy@dhs.gov.

(See ITT’s Online Archives 11102417 for summary of CBP's message on the new MPF effective dates.)