Urgent Announcement to Importers of Record

Issue 524, August 3, 2006

It has come to our attention that in the past two days the National Finance Center (NFC) of Customs Border & Protection (CBP) has already, and will be, deeming over 1,000 continuous bonds as insufficient due to invalid IR numbers.

In early July CBP Headquarters voided 85,000 importer numbers as they did not match with the IRS database information. 1,000 of these had active Continuous Bonds. CBP Headquarters has forwarded the list to the NFC to deem the bonds as insufficient and required the NFC to do so immediately. The NFC has NOT notified the importer, broker, or surety of the insufficient bonds. The NFC was advised by HQ that the importers knew the IR numbers were invalid and no notice was required.

This may have a residual impact on timely clearance of your import cargo. Unfortunately CBP has not published the list of affected IRS numbers, so proactively it will be difficult to project if your company will be impacted. The first notice of an issue may be at the time of a request for release of your cargo!

The NFC is requiring that the insufficient bonds be terminated and replaced using the correct IRS number. In addition, the importer must provide an IRS coupon or Federal Tax Form showing the correct number, CF5106, and, if the broker is signing as an Attorney-in-fact, a valid Power of Attorney.

If the importer has an IRS coupon showing that their number is in fact valid, this must be provided to the NFC to be given priority status.

The NFC and we believe that the majority of the invalid IR numbers may be a result of keystroke or transposition errors made by CBP. If the importer/broker can prove that the keystroke was a Customs error, the termination and replacement will be given priority status at the NFC.

DHL Global Forwarding stands ready to assist you in resolving any of these issues as they arise. As a temporary alternative resolution to expediting the movement of your cargo, we offer to release and enter your cargo under a Single Transaction Bond to alleviate the administrative headaches while the Continuous Bond issue is being resolved.

Additional service fees will apply for the processing of your cargo under the Single Transaction Bond process, however, these will be inevitably less than the costs of delays in delivery and related storage or demurrage charges.

You will be notified by us if your company is impacted by this CBP administrative action. We are working closely with our Bond Company and our Customs Account Manager to expedite resolution processes as well as to discover the universe of IRS number that may be impacted by this action.

If you have further questions, please direct your inquiries to DHL Global Forwarding's Customer Bond Department at 248-263-8800.