Size Limits, Other Changes Coming for Electronic and Manual Drawback on Oct. 1 ACE Deadline

CBP’s Oct. 1 deadline for drawback in ACE will bring changes not only for electronic claims currently filed in the Automated Commercial System, but also for claims submitted manually, agency officials said during an Aug. 11 webinar. Electronic claims in ACE will be subject to a limit of 5,000 records, and supporting documentation will have to be uploaded in the document imaging system (DIS) within 24 hours for a claim to be considered complete, said Lena Torrence of CBP’s Commercial Operations, Revenue and Entry division. As CBP has previously announced (see 1606070040), current entry types 41 through 46 will be replaced with the single entry type 47, with the relevant provision of drawback laws cited on the claim, and all communication for electronic claims, including CBP Form 28s, through the ACE portal, she said.

Though CBP will still accept manual drawback claims, the agency will ask that their size be limited to 50 or fewer underlying entries, Torrence said. That’s because CBP will have to manually input manual claims into ACE, which is a “very labor-intensive process,” she said. Manual claims should be processed within 120 days, while electronic ACE claims will be processed within three weeks, she said.

After the initial deployment of drawback on Oct. 1, CBP will work on post-core drawback functionality, including enhancements to support drawback simplification and implementation of drawback provisions of recently enacted customs reauthorization legislation (see 1603010043). Over the “next year or so,” the drawback policy office will focus on revising regulations and policies to comply with the mandates of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. In the near term, CBP will soon release the final drawback chapter of the ACE business rules and process document, said Chris Yonkman, chief of CBP’s Drawback and Revenue Branch. Following discussions with a working group, updates and vetting within CBP, the chapter will be released by 30 days before the Oct. 1 deadline at the latest. The new chapter will give some policy guidance on electronic submission of drawback claims, he said.

Changes coming via the submission of drawback claims in ACE go “hand in hand” with drawback simplification provisions of customs reauthorization, Yonkman said. The new system will allow CBP to streamline the way it processes drawback, and the way it receives and the trade community submits claims, he said. New revenue validations will help CBP address excessive claims and overpayments identified in internal audit findings (see 1505060021), bond sufficiency and e-bond functionality will be added for accelerated payment-approved claimants, and there will be tighter integration with post-release processes like collections and statement, Yonkman said.