The first tranche of International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariff refunds is due to hit importers’ bank accounts on May 12, according to Customs and Border Protection.
In a message shared with importers on Monday, CBP indicated that tariff refunds will be issued electronically from the U.S. Treasury Department one day later than previously indicated by the agency, which originally ballparked May 11 as the start date.
On April 20, CBP launched its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) tool within its import and export processing system, the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE). More than 75,000 refund declarations were filed within a week of the system’s debut, and 3 percent of those deemed eligible had entered the refund stage of the process.
This week’s memo to importers using the CAPE system contained resources to help them track the entries moving through the refund process and running refund reports within ACE. It also contained information on refunds that have been rejected and instructions on how to proceed if a submission is turned down. CBP encouraged importers to schedule recurring reports to be sent to their emails as a means of keeping track of the state of their submissions.
In a report for Court of International Trade (CIT) Judge Richard K. Eaton last week, CBP executive director of trade programs Brandon Lord wrote that CAPE’s Phase 1 functionality is “working successfully,” though other stakeholders told the court that there have been glitches and hiccups with the system.
“Of the universe of those [entries] which were accepted, which was 11 million of the entries, only 1.7 million are liquidating, [meaning that] they’re set out for refunds,” said Nicole Bivens Collinson, managing principal of the operating committee on international trade and government relations at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.
More precisely, 11,222,927 entries successfully passed the file validations stage, and 2,124,394 entries (about 19 percent) were rejected on the basis of failing entry-specific validations.
“So that means there’s still 9-10 million that have got to go through this process. And I don’t think we know what that timing is and when we might see something,” Collinson said during a tariff refund webinar hosted by the American Apparel & Footwear Association on Monday.
Amanda Levitt, an international trade and customs lawyer with ST&R, said the 3 percent of refunds dispersed by CBP represent “a very small population where they likely have no questions.”
The swiftness with which those refunds were processed may not be indicative of the situation moving forward, she warned. “You have 97 percent that are still considered ‘under review’ despite your CAPE declaration being accepted, and that’s where we have to see what customs is going to ask about where they found potential issues or gray areas.”
CBP’s Lord told Judge Eaton that he would present a short progress report on the CAPE Phase 1 deployment to the CIT on May 12.
