NIT League seminar offers shippers lesson on duty suspension

NIT League seminar offers shippers lesson on duty suspension    The National Industrial Transportation League provided shippers with insights into how they can eliminate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on duties paid for components imported into the United States and European Union.
   The NIT League described how the process of import duty suspension works during its “Impact of Free Trade on Logistics” seminar in Washington Monday.
   In the United States, duty suspension is a legislative process through which import duties can be reduced, suspended or eliminated under a specific set of requirements. Suspensions are usually granted for raw materials or parts that are imported and cannot be obtained from a U.S. source.
   The European Union’s duty suspension program is different than that of the United States', because the European Union spells out the process through regulations.
   Some multinationals, especially in the chemical sector, have made good use of duty suspensions over the years, but many small and mid-sized shippers remain unaware that the same benefits could apply to them, said Donald Cameron, principal of The Cameron Group.
   Walter Raheb, senior policy advisor for Washington-based law firm Thelen Reid & Priest, said the process of seeking duty suspensions in the United States is not difficult or expensive. The basic requirements are that the duty suspension requests must not be politically controversial, revenue neutral to the Treasury (not exceeding $650,000 a year), and administrable by Customs and Border Protection.
   Duty suspensions are rolled into a congressional miscellaneous trade bill. There are about 300 duty suspensions requests included in the current miscellaneous trade bill pending in Congress.
   (For more details about the duty suspension process, read the June American Shipper, pages 14-16.)