CBP Considering Possibility That Drawback Rules May Not Be Final by February

CBP is looking into the possibility that a final rule for drawback won't be in effect by the statutorily required date, said Randy Mitchell, director of CBP’s Commercial Operations, Revenue and Entry Division, during a May 24 webinar hosted by Integration Point. "Everything concerning the [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] and the effective final rule is very tentative," he said. "We know that we have a congressional mandate of February 2019 to implement the drawback, the new law for drawback. But what happens if we don't have that effective final rule there, and we don't know right now and we've been discussing that with our lawyers."

Even so, the agency remains optimistic. "We really believe we're going to hit that date" and it "will be available for processing," he said. "But really, right now, it's still going through its process." The comment period for the proposal will likely be 60 or 90 days, "depending on when it's issued," though "everything is still tentative." The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act made changes to the drawback process that are required to fully take effect Feb. 24, 2019.

Without the option of accelerated payments (see 1802120020), it's also somewhat unclear how quickly CBP will be able to issue TFTEA drawback refunds without a final rule, he said. "Not having a final rule" is "impacting payment of those drawback claims, so we are not really right now able to calculate the TFTEA drawback claims," he said. "Not being able to calculate those claims impacts the process of paying those claims." Some companies filed a lawsuit against CBP in March (see 1804300050) saying the government is improperly not processing their requests for accelerated payment on TFTEA drawback claims.