Dive Brief:
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection expects to begin issuing refunds for defunct Trump administration tariffs as soon as May 11, according to a court filing this week.
- The agency has accepted roughly 21% of all entries submitted to its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal it launched April 20 to process refunds for tariffs the Supreme Court invalidated earlier this year. About 3% of those entries have been liquidated and moved onto the refund process, per the filing.
- Although some refunds may be delivered in a matter of weeks, CBP noted that some importers have faced issues such as long wait times and confusion over which party should be making declarations in CAPE.
Dive Insight:
Given the accelerated development time CBP underwent to build and launch CAPE, the system has run better than expected in its first week or so in the wild, experts told Supply Chain Dive.
The agency initially set a 45-day timeline to build and launch the portal after the Supreme Court ruled that tariffs President Donald Trump installed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were illegal. CBP later said it expected to start delivering refunds 60 to 90 days after entries were accepted in the system.
“I don't think anyone will tell you it has not exceeded expectations by far,” William Jansen, director of customs brokerage services at Seko Logistics, said in an interview.
Even on what was at times a hectic launch day for importers and customs brokers, many companies were able to log in to the system, which is housed in CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment, as soon as CAPE went live, according to Gabe McGann, VP of international operations at logistics company Rogers & Brown.
“This is the best rollout for something in ACE I have seen,” McGann said in an interview, noting that for many importers the process has been “instantaneous,” with filers able to see if entries are accepted or rejected within seconds of upload.
Although it has run relatively smoothly so far, there have still been some hiccups within the system. Some of the issues have been typical of computer-run systems, with importers being told the portal was busy and to try uploading data again after 30 minutes, experts said. Similarly, importers have struggled with two-factor authentication or getting ACE support staff on the phone to troubleshoot challenges.
“It's very hard to get someone from customs to help importers right now,” Pete Mento, director of global trade advisory services at Baker Tilly, told Supply Chain Dive. “So, although CAPE is working fine, where you would get the information (ACE) and how you would get paid (ACH) are really backlogged.”
Meanwhile, some importers have received error messages after uploading data. Experts said these have often occurred because entries didn’t actually face IEEPA tariffs or they were finally liquidated entries, which CAPE is not yet able to process. CBP has previously stated it plans to develop that capability in a future update to the system.
However, Jansen said that less than 1% of the “tens of thousands” of entries Seko Logistics has handled have been rejected without a clear explanation.
To avoid errors while filing, it’s critical for importers to ensure their data is consistent and vetted, Mento said, advising companies to treat it like a tax return.
“Don't make it harder on yourself by giving customs a reason to say no,” Mento said.
This will be especially crucial for importers that must wait for CBP to implement the ability to process finally liquidated entries, as CAPE’s initial rollout addresses more of the “low-hanging fruit,” according to McGann.
Having clean and verified data will also be important past entry submission and refund delivery, as CBP has the right to audit entries for another two years even after returning funds, according to Mento.
“So, it makes a lot of sense to wait, make sure your underlying data is correct, audit your information, make sure it's correct, and then upload it,” Mento said. “I know everybody wants their money right now, but making sure that you have the correct data underneath it is so very important.”
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