CBP Announces Future Addition of PGA Indicators to ABI Tariff, Provides Formats
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is advising the trade of future changes to the ABI Harmonized Tariff Extract reference file and to the ABI HTS Query transaction records to display new output records that will identify tariff numbers that have PGA (Participating Government Agency) indicators associated with the tariff number. CBP is also providing the formats for the new record identifiers, for trade programming purposes.
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Two New Identifiers to be Created for PGAs, Record Formats Provided
CBP states that the HTS extract reference file will be modified to display a new “VL’ conditional record identifier (output) that will display PGA indicators associated with a tariff number. The HTS query transaction record(s) process will also be modified to display a new “WL” record identifier (output) that will display PGA indicators associated with the tariff number. CBP's notice lists the record formats needed for trade programming purposes, for these two new records.
No PGA Indicators to be Added Now, all for the Future
At the present, there are no PGA indicators that have been assigned to any tariff number. CBP states that these changes will accommodate future PGA reporting associated with the PGA record set.
CBP states that the trade will be notified in a future message when the above PGA indicator changes have been made (which according to one trade source, will not be soon).
(Note that CBP currently has Other Government Agency (OGA) flags in the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) that are limited to the Automated Commercial System (ACS), for a number of agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), etc.
CBP’s announcement of future changes refers to the PGA Data Set, which currently only includes the Lacey Act Declaration (which is only partially automated, the data is delivered to APHIS on CDs), and is intended to include all PGAs.
Also note that sources state CBP has not yet decided if the PGA indicator programming will only be for ABI in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), or if it will be for ABI in ACS too.)
(CSMS #11-000202)