Tonight the Trump Administration has announced the opportunity to temporarily delay duty payments for 90 days on goods entered into the United States in March or April 2020. Delayed payment options DO NOT cover goods subject to enforcement actions under Sections 301, 232, and other trade remedy cases. A summary of the action is posted below. You can access the announcement
here
and the official Temporary Final Rule
here
.
SUMMARY
:
In light of the President’s Proclamation Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) (Presidential Proclamation 9994) under the National Emergencies Act on March 13, 2020, and the President’s Executive Order entitled “National Emergency Authority to Postpone The Time to Deposit Certain Estimated Duties, Taxes, and Fees” authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to exercise the authority under section 318(a) of the Tariff Act of 1930, issued on April 18, 2020, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the designee of the Secretary of Homeland Security (U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)), is amending the CBP regulations to temporarily postpone the deadline for importers of record with a significant financial hardship to deposit certain estimated duties, taxes, and fees that they would ordinarily be obligated to pay as of the date of entry, or withdrawal from warehouse, for consumption, for merchandise entered in March or April 2020, for a period of 90 days from the date that the deposit would otherwise have been due but for this emergency action. This temporary postponement does not permit return of any deposits of estimated duties, taxes, and/or fees that have been paid. This temporary postponement also does not apply to entries, or withdrawals from warehouse, subject to certain specified trade remedies, and any entry summary that includes merchandise subject to those trade remedies is not eligible under this rule.
HOW TO QUALIFY:
To qualify for this temporary postponement, an importer must demonstrate a significant financial hardship. An eligible importer’s operation must be fully or partially suspended during March or April 2020 due to orders from a competent governmental authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings because of COVID-19, and as a result of such suspension, the gross receipts of such importer for March 13-31, 2020 or April 2020 are less than 60 percent of the gross receipts for the comparable period in 2019. An eligible importer need not file additional documentation 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.
To discuss this announcement and the latest developments on the coronavirus, FDRA will hold our next coronavirus call on Tuesday, April 21st at 2:00 p.m. EDT. This call is for FDRA Members only.
