CBP Advises Trade on Future ABI System Requirements for Filing Australia FTA Claims

Future ABI System Requirements

for Filing Australia FTA Claims

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued an ABI administrative message advising the trade that the Automated Commercial System (ACS) is being programmed to accept claims under the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement (UAFTA).

(Currently, UAFTA claims must be filed non-ABI. See ITT's Online Archives or 01/03/05 news, 05010310, for BP summary of the non-ABI filing requirement for UAFTA goods until further notice.)

CBP states that when the programming changes are completed, the trade will be advised in a future message that they can begin filing UAFTA claims through the ABI system.

Future ABI System Requirements for UAFTA Claims

According to CBP, to claim UAFTA benefits, the following system requirements must be met:

ISO country code. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) country of origin or country of export must be 'AU' for Australia

HTS number must have SPI 'AU.' The tariff numbers associated with a UAFTA claim must contain the special program indicator (SPI) of 'AU.' The tariff numbers with the UAFTA indicator may either be free or a reduced rate. If the rate is reduced, the duty rate will be indicated in the special rate field with the ISO code 'AU.'

SPI 'AU' must be transmitted. The SPI indicator of 'AU' must be transmitted.

No MPF for UAFTA claims. Merchandise processing fee (MPF) edits for UAFTA claims are as follows:

No MPFs (class code 499/311) will be required for UAFTA claims (SPI 'AU')

There will be situations where a tariff number is duty free, and as a result does not have an SPI. If the merchandise associated with these duty free tariff numbers qualifies under the UAFTA provisions, the MPF exemption can be made by transmitting the country code SPI of 'AU.'

(CBP notes that this procedure is similar to NAFTA, Chile FTA and Singapore FTA claims to exempt the MPF for duty free tariff numbers.)

TRQs, safeguards. The UAFTA will have tariff numbers that are subject to tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) (HTS 9913.02.05 - 9913.52.40) and tariff numbers subject to safeguard provisions (HTS 9913.95.01 - 9913.96.66).

According to CBP, the classification and duty rate for commodities subject to the safeguard provisions will be based on the unit price of the merchandise. The trade must know the unit price of the product subject to the safeguard provisions in order to classify their merchandise properly.

UAFTA export certificate requirement for certain HTS numbers. CBP states that the UAFTA requires a UAFTA export certificate for HTS numbers 9913.02.05, 9913.04.05, 9913.04.10, 9913.04.15, 9913.04.20, 9913.04.25, 9913.04.30, 9913.04.35, 9913.04.40, 9913.04.45, 9913.04.50, 9913.04.55, and 9913.04.65.

These tariff numbers will have a permit indicator of '08' indicating that the tariff numbers are subject to the UAFTA export certificate requirement.

The UAFTA export certificate number should be entered in the miscellaneous permit/license number field. (See administrative message for format.)

According to CBP, the government of Australia has indicated that the UAFTA export certificate will be a nine alpha/numeric format. The first position of the certificate will be numeric, the second and third positions will be the ISO code of 'AU,' and positions 4-9 will be alpha/numeric characters.

CBP states that the UAFTA export certificates will be optional for warehouse entry types (21 or 22) and for temporary importation bond (TIB) entry type '23.'

CBP Adm: 05-0018 (dated 01/05/05), including applicable fields and positions, available at http://www.brokerpower.com/cgi-bin/adminsearch/admmsg.view.pl?article=2005/2005-0018.ADM