Customs Issues

CS provides businesses with the information they need about foreign and domestic origin issues, including marking. ECS also answers clients’ inquiries and provides up-to-date information about duty drawback, valuation issues, user fees, and the changes taking place as a result of the Customs Modernization Act. ECS also monitors Customs’ classification rulings for its clients to determine how their competitors’ imports are being classified for duty and quota purposes, their country of origin, and even importer of record.

ECS has frequent contact with Customs personnel at both the Washington and district levels and works closely with them to solve problems. ECS clients also benefit from the foreign customs expertise of the firm’s network of overseas correspondent firms and professional contacts abroad. In addition, ECS requests classification and other rulings from Customs, responds to Form 29 requests, files protests, and assists law firms or legal departments with research and advice in customs and trade issues.

• ECS helped an industry correct a problem created by ambiguity in the tariff classification of a consumer product. Consultations with Customs and other Executive Branch agencies built support for a miscellaneous tariff bill that is now law. On behalf of another client, ECS alerted the Executive Branch to an anomaly in the proposed Harmonized System that would have significantly changed the rate of duty on a product. ECS’ intervention resulted in a modification to the Harmonized System and restored tariff neutrality for this product.
  
  
• During negotiation of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, ECS played a key role in designing country-of-origin requirements for non-ferrous metal products to prevent third-country products from obtaining preferential duty benefits.