First Sale

Retroactive Reporting of First Sale Declarations Due By September 26

Importers are required to declare at the time of entry when the transaction value of goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse is determined on the basis of the price paid by the buyer in a sale occurring earlier than the last sale prior to the introduction of the merchandise into the United States, i.e., under the "first sale" rule. This first sale declaration requirement is applicable for one year for all goods entered on or after August 20, 2008.

Although CBP has announced a 30-day interim grace period to allow fliers time in which to become system ready to transmit the new data element, CBP is mandated by law to collect this data for a one-year period beginning August 20, 2008. Therefore, CBP is requiring the trade to retroactively report the required data element that should have been declared during the grace period.

Entry summaries for entries made between August 20 and September 19, 2008 that are subject to the First Sale Declaration Requirement must be amended if importers were unable to declare at time of filing. Importers or fliers must submit a written request to the respective CBP port of entry to amend affected entry summaries. The letter should be accompanied by a spreadsheet listing the entry summaries with line numbers that require the first sale indicator. CBP will consider this submission as a declaration of the first sale for the subject entry summaries and will update the summary record in the Automated Commercial System (ACS).

Retroactive reporting of the first sale declaration for entry summaries filed during the grace period must be presented to CBP by close of business September 26, 2008.

CBP has advised that Post Entry Amendments (PEAs) are not the authorized vehicle for this one-time administrative reconciliation of entry summary data. Further, this declaration must be made by the importer at the time of filing a consumption entry and does not meet the criteria for submission via a single or quarterly PEA. This suggests that first sale declaration omissions discovered after September 26, 2008 must be remedied by filing a prior disclosure.

Softwood Lumber

Effective September 2008

When congress recently passed the Farm Bill, one area of emphasis was on shipments of softwood lumber and products of softwood lumber.

The importer now has the obligation to submit basic import information on these products regardless of the country of export or of origin. In the past, this has been restricted to Canadian Softwood Lumber.

The importer will now be required to submit the export price and any charges associated with this value at the time of entry. Failure to porvide this information to Customs at the time of entry could result in fines and penalties and restrict the importer from entering future shipments.

We urge you ro contact our import department with any questions or issues you mat have on this legislation.