TradeLane

We’ve never had a problem before. Do I need to worry?

Many companies regard export compliance as a low priority. Money talks and unlike the import side of the ledger, there are no duties that must be paid on exports out of the United States. If there are no duties to collect, does anyone really care?

As a supposed trade expert, I am in daily contact with a variety of import and export clients. I assess compliance risk, write procedure manuals and offer advice when things go terribly wrong in the course of a client’s importing or exporting process. One particular conference call reminded me that while the vast array of acronyms and abbreviations are useful and necessary within the international trade community as a whole, they can be mystifying to folks working in logistics but not directly in trade compliance.  That call went something like this...

In most operations, the compliance department audits and approves the duty bills as part of its responsibilities. The good news is that the U.S. government will accept many forms of payment for import duty and fees:

• U.S. currency and coins
• Bank drafts
• Cashiers' checks
• Certified checks
• Personal checks drawn on a U.S. financial institution
• Domestic travelers' checks
• U.S. Governments checks endorsed by the payee to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Money orders (U.S. Postal, bank, express or telegraph)

The bad news is that there’s no clear way for an international compliance group to show that these every-day compliance processes improve the bottom line. Or is there?

I’ve always found it interesting that so many healthcare companies that import chemicals and pharmaceuticals have such a difficult time with import compliance. These companies typically have solid regulatory compliance knowledge regarding the FDA, Departments of Agriculture, Consumer Product Safety Commission and many other agencies and have access to chemists and manufacturing product experts. It’s never as easy as it appears.

As a former Director of Operations and a licensed Customs Broker, I understand how difficult it can be to stay on top of changes in the regulations that surround import compliance. The proliferation of trade preference programs offer savings opportunities but require a company to accept significant responsibilities which can be difficult to manage.  All of these programs have a foundation in the accurate classification of imported products.