Stumbling Blocks Remain After 'Successful' Drawback Deployment

CBP’s weekend deployment of drawback, reconciliation and liquidation in ACE was “successful,” though some hurdles remain before systems are running as intended, CBP officials said on a pair of phone calls with trade stakeholders held Feb. 26. The deployment marked a “significant milestone,” being the last of the major scheduled “core” ACE deployments, said Deborah Augustin, executive director of CBP’s Trade Transformation Office. “At this time, all import manifest, cargo release, post-release and export functionality we had scheduled for delivery in 'core' ACE is now available in ACE,” she said.

As of right now, 41 unique drawback claims have been filed in ACE since the legacy Automated Commercial System was decommissioned Feb. 23 and the new ACE system was brought online, Michael Cerny, of Sandler Travis, said on the second of the two calls, which focused on drawback. Only six of those claims have been accepted, he said. There are “a lot of things that are being worked through,” with filers getting back errors that involve the tariff schedule number or unit of measure. An issue with the entered goods value per unit data element has also been causing CBP to incorrectly reject claims, a CBP official said. The agency hopes to implement a fix today, she said.

Some filers may find their claims rejected for claiming certain privileges that did not get migrated over to ACE for some entry types “because they didn’t match over,” a CBP official said. If filers think that’s the reason for an incorrect rejection, they should refile the entry without privileges and contact a drawback specialist to have their privileges manually updated. Filers claiming waiver of prior notice privileges won’t be able to refile successfully, so they should contact a CBP drawback specialist immediately before refiling, she said. Once corrected, the rejections won’t come up again, the CBP official said.

CBP issued a new version of its CBP and Trade Automated Interface Requirements (CATAIR) for drawback during the course of the deployment. One change that will likely need some reprogramming by filers is an update to “Appendix G,” which includes information required for drawback claims on entries flagged for reconciliation. Many won’t be in a position to quickly update their systems to change the format of the required spreadsheet, Cerny said. CBP will “continue to work with the trade,” a CBP official said. Drawback specialists will likely not be surprised at delays in putting together the required spreadsheet, and will probably not reject any claims due to the issue, another CBP official said.

Meanwhile, a “back and forth” on information required for “mixed-use claims” continues. There’s no issue with the information required by CBP to ensure filers aren’t claiming drawback twice by calculating refunds for Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) substitution claims, which are based on entry line averages, and “core” drawback claims, based on invoice values, Cerny said. But CBP’s time frame for submitting the information -- 24 hours after the claim -- came as a surprise, he said. That short window of time “puts an impediment in front of folks” that was not the intent of the drawback simplification provisions of TFTEA, he said. A CBP official on the call agreed to further discussion of the issue.