Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) by CBP Prevents $278M of Duty Evasion

The EAPA is the second-largest revenue collecting agency of the federal government and in the Fiscal Year of 2020, CBP has been able to stop importers from evading $287 million in duties owed to the United States.

The purpose of EAPA is to make sure that foreign companies or other exporters that are moving goods into the United States pay the right amount of duties for their products. Without this, exporters could find ways to evade paying these duties and thus have a large advantage over domestic companies.

Through investigation, the EAPA program has found that the majority of these duty evasions were done with Chinese goods that have been illegally shipped through a third country or undervalued and misclassified when they enter the United States.

EAPA does the following to combat this problem:

1. Pause the final billing to prevent evaders from skirting their obligations.

• CBP thoroughly vets an importer’s transaction history over the course of an entire year before determining the final payment owed to the U.S. Government.

2. Conduct onsite visits in foreign countries to determine firsthand if fraud is occurring.

3. Leverage new authorities to ensure importers cooperate in evasion investigations, which was not possible before EAPA.

• Adverse inference is a powerful authority that allows CBP to legally pursue entities that fail to provide information regarding product compliance.

4. Hold importers accountable for understanding the origins of their supply chains.

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Any questions about the EAPA?

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