Legislators concerned about uncollected customs duties

Legislators concerned about uncollected customs duties    U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner assured House members Thursday he is taking steps to tighten the system for collecting penalty tariffs on imports singled out for unfair trade violations.
   The agency has acknowledged it was unable to collect about $130 million in antidumping revenue last year from duties slapped on underpriced imports to protect U.S. manufacturers and producers. The vast majority of the shortfall is associated with imports of agricultural products from China.
   Bonner said he needs extra time to coordinate with the Department of Commerce, which issues antidumping orders, how to make sure customs bonds are set at the right level to recover money from an insurance company if an importer defaults on paying the duty. He said the problem is compounded by the time lag and wide difference between the preliminary duty set at the beginning of an investigation and the final duty, which may be more than the amount of the bond.
   Bonner told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade that Customs also needs to work with the Treasury Department to make sure surety bond companies are adequately capitalized after one company recently was unable to cover bonds it issued.
   “We probably never will close the gap 100 percent, but we can do better,” he said.
      Reps. Sander Levin, D-Mich., and Robert Portman, R-Ohio, criticized Customs for not moving faster to recalculate minimum bond levels and implement other measures to enforce antidumping duties.
   “There is no urgency here. These excuses are not good much longer,” Levin said.
   Legislators are honing in on the problem because the U.S. government transfers duty penalties to U.S. companies within their districts.
   Bonner said Customs is doing a better job of moving quickly to prevent duty evasion once Commerce sets the final duty margin, but offered few specifics.
   “It doesn’t do any good to bar the exporter from further shipments because then they re-emerge as successor companies to evade antidumping duties,” Bonner told reporters afterwards.
   Bonner said he saw no need to go to an all cash deposit system instead of the current practice, which allows importers to use bonds under limited circumstances, but said he did not oppose such proposals either.
   “There may be circumstances where we want the authority to require a cash deposit, but not across the board,” he said.