For those intending to apply for distributions under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA) this year, certifications are due to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on August 1, 2014.
CBP’s notice regarding FY2014 applications states:
Any certification received after August 1, 2014 will be denied, making claimants ineligible for the distribution.
Certifications may be filed electronically, following the instructions provided in CBP’s FY2014 notice, or can be mailed to the agency at the following address:
Assistant Commissioner, Office of Administration,
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Revenue Division,
Attention: CDSOA Team,
6650 Telecom Drive, Suite 100,
Indianapolis, IN, 46278.
CDSOA certifications must be submitted directly to CBP to be considered by that agency.
CBP has posted on the agency’s website a preliminary report regarding CDSOA funds that may be available for distribution in FY2014. For duties collected on shrimp imports, CBP reports a preliminary figure of $446,561.86 as available through April 30, 2014 for distribution in FY2014.
These amounts are preliminary figures. What is actually available for disbursement may be higher or lower depending on actions taken by CBP between now and fiscal year end.
For each of the last eight years, the amount ultimately distributed by CBP has exceeded the preliminary amount announced as potentially available by the agency. Last year, for example, the preliminary amount announced by CBP as preliminarily available was negative $268,878.13. CBP ultimately distributed nearly $7.2 million in collected antidumping duties to the domestic shrimp industry.
Of the $7.2 million made available for distribution last year, $6.8 million came from antidumping duties collected on Chinese shrimp imports. In comparison, in the seven years spanning from 2006 through 2012, a total of $3.3 million in antidumping duties collected on Chinese shrimp was distributed through CDSOA.
Similarly, this year, the vast majority of the preliminary amount announced as available for distribution comes from duties collected on Chinese shrimp imports.
These distributions appear to reflect CBP’s success at uncovering importer error and fraud resulting in the evasion of payment of antidumping duties on Chinese shrimp imports.
Unlike other agricultural and seafood products subject to antidumping duties, the antidumping duty orders on shrimp have not been plagued by massive undercollection of duties. In fact, in fiscal year 2012 – the last year for which data are available – the total amount of open bills owed on shrimp imports for antidumping duties ($11.6 million) was less than one percent of the nearly $1.8 billion in open bills for antidumping duties reported that year. In contrast, CBP reported nearly $394 million in open bills on Chinese crawfish tail imports, $25 million on fish fillets from Vietnam, $541 million on Chinese fresh garlic, $178 million on Chinese honey, and $121 million on preserved mushrooms from China.
The distribution, through CDSOA, of duties collected on Chinese shrimp imports is one indicator of CBP’s remarkable efforts in enforcing the antidumping duty orders. However, a more important indicator for the industry is the current market for shrimp. Both CBP and the U.S. Department of Commerce, with the assistance of many other federal agencies, continue to successfully identify and stop circumvention schemes intended to undermine the trade remedy. These actions have played a significant role in preventing further harm to the U.S. shrimp industry by unfairly traded imports.