To our Valued Clients:
Recent trade legislation changed the Merchandise Processing Fee Rate for Formal Entries (Class Code 499) from 0.21% (.0021) TO 0.3464% (.003464).
Please see below message with respect to the change with the merchandise processing fee that went into effect on October 1, 2011.
CSMS# 12-000217
Retroactive Merchandise Processing Fee (MPF) Increase
The purpose of this memorandum is to announce that the Office of International Trade will begin billing for the increase in merchandise processing fee (MPF), as established by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011 (TAA), retroactively effective on October 1, 2011. CBP automated system programming was completed in November 2011 and ACS began accepting the new MPF rate on November 5, 2011. CBP could not begin the retroactive billing process for merchandise entered between October 1, 2011 and November 4, 2011 until the refund processing was completed for the Generalized System of Preferences, Andean Trade Preference Act, and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act retroactive renewals.
The Entry, Summary, and Drawback Branch (ESD) will script liquidate entries with a future liquidation date to generate a bill for the additional MPF due. Differences of less than $20.00 are de minimis, and as such will not be processed for retroactive MPF. Entries which are flagged for reconciliation shall have the MPF increase accounted for via the reconciliation entry. Once the scripting begins, ESD will post weekly results on CBPnet Secure at the following link:
https://cbpnetsecure.cbp.dhs.gov/sites/ot/tpp/tfa/Pages/Welcome.aspx.
Entries for which CBP system successfully generated a bill will be listed in the file titled, “MPF Increases”. This list is being provided to the ports for use as back-up documentation in relation to the B12 report (Bulletin Notice of Entries Liquidated – by Batch and Sequence). Entries that failed the scripting process will be available via the same link, in the file titled, “MPF Script Errors”. Ports must manually liquidate all entries that are included in this list.
The scripting process will begin the week of June 11, 2012. We expect to liquidate approximately 20,000 entries per week but do not have an estimated completion date. If you have questions regarding this process, please contact Ms. Terry Monroy, International Trade Specialist, Office of International Trade at terry.monroy@dhs.gov.
Should you have any questions or require further explanation, please do not hesitate to contact us.