GAO: FEES ON OCEAN CARRIERS, SHIPPERS CLIMB

   A recently released General Accounting Office report said that fees
assessed on the maritime industry grew 20.3 percent from 1991 to 1998, when shippers and ocean carriers paid an estimated $21.9 billion.
   The GAO report, "Federal Assessments on the Maritime Industry," said that 11 federal agencies collect 124 different fees and assessments on maritime commerce, totaling nearly $22 billion, compared to $18.2 billion in fiscal 1991.
   Importers and exporters paid about $20 billion of the total —
practically all of that to U.S. Customs — in fiscal 1998. The shippers’
1998 total was 17 percent above fiscal 1991, the last time the GAO studies the fees.
   Vessel operators paid about $1 billion in fees, up about 46 percent from 1991.
   Of the fees collected, about $20 billion was deposited into the U.S.
Treasury’s General Fund. About $995 million was credited to agency counts as reimbursement for services and the remaining $762 million went to three trust funds, including the Harbor Maintenance Tax. The harbor tax was declared unconstitutional in March.
   The GAO report was released during the American Association of Port Authorities convention in New York.
   "This confirms what we’ve been saying for years — that shippers, vessel owners, operators, importers and exports are already heavily taxed," said Kurt J. Nagle, AAPA president.
   Nagle took the GAO report as another opportunity to harpoon the Clinton Administration’s proposal to create a Harbor Services tax, which would assess carriers with about $1 billion in fees each year for harbor maintenance. The AAPA has endorsed a plan that would draw harbor maintenance financing from the General Fund.