CBP Planning to Move Drawback Into Centers of Excellence and Expertise by End of September
CBP will be moving drawback operations from within dedicated drawback centers and into the Centers of Excellence and Expertise, said Sharolyn McCann, director, Commercial Operations, Revenue and Entry, Office of Trade. McCann, who recently replaced Randy Mitchell in that role, spoke May 4 during the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference. "We are hoping to have this transition completed by the end of the fiscal year, the end of September," she said.
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The Office of Field Operations is leading the effort while McCann's group is providing policy support, she said. "Our drawback personnel will transition from the existing four Drawback Offices to five Centers of Excellence and Expertise." The drawback claimants will be assigned at the account level to one of the Centers, she said. After a claim is transmitted into ACE, "ACE will route them internally to the appropriate center based on the assignment," she said.
The change will apply only to future filings and won't affect already filed claims, McCann said. Even so, "I do think that there is going to be some initial confusion for folks who have claims on file with one drawback specialist and then are going to have their prospective claims with a different drawback specialist," said David Corn, of Comstock & Theakston. "So you could potentially have some questions coming from two people for the same claimant," he said.
Another concern is for how the exporter or non-importer manufacturers are handled because they aren't assigned to a center, said Anne-Marie Bush, president of Veritrade International. It is also unclear what happens when corporations with multiple products are assigned to one of the Centers but the drawback involves products that aren't associated with that Center, she said.