CUSTOMS REMINDS IMPORTERS TO RE-FILE FOR BONDS LOST AT WTC

CUSTOMS REMINDS IMPORTERS TO RE-FILE FOR BONDS LOST AT WTC    A U.S. Customs official on Tuesday warned duty drawback filers that June 12 is the deadline to reclaim bonds destroyed in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
   Of the 35,000 lost bonds — some dating back to the late 1890s ' less than a dozen claims have been filed, said Maryanne Carney, chief of Customs' Drawback and Records Branch.
   Those who do not apply run the risk of having those bonds being terminated by Customs, Carney said at the Association of American Exporters and Importers conference in New York.
   Of those bonds lost, about were import bonds and about 5,000 were drawback bonds, she said.
   Importers should send a copy of the bonds when applying for a reclaim, she said.
   A Customs bond may be approved by the agency for an activity involving one individual Customs transaction, or as a continuous bond for an activity of multiple Customs transactions.
   Carney said that, because of the paperwork losses suffered at the agency’s World Trade Center site, Customs is considering implementing a paperless prototype for the filing of duty drawback claims. If such a prototype were to be implemented, it would begin testing at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
   Anne Hilsabeck, principal of AMH Customs Consultants, said Customs should extend the deadline to allow companies ample time in the process.
   “It is going to take time for the companies to locate the bonds,” Hilsabeck said. Many companies do not review the Federal Register, where the deadline notice was posted May 13, so they may not know of the deadline, she added.
   “Maybe there will be an extension” to the June 12 deadline, Carney said. “Is that the drop-dead date? I don’t know.”