Custom Handmade
Can a custom broker give a Custom Form 7501 to his customers?
I’m in a trading company, we often import vegetables from the other country. We have a custom broker who always email us invoice to pay custom bond, duty and his broker fee before the container arrives, we paid it in full then we will receive our container on time; otherwise, a lot of extra $ needs to pay.
Recently, I want to have those receipts from him. I need some official one from the Custom not the one handmade from him, so I told him I want to have my 7501 Form, he told me he can’t give it to me, the reason is there’s a lot of codes on the form, those all confidential.
Is there anyone out there can help me figure it out? Any comments will be welcome.
Thank you.
You should pressure the broker to give you the CF 7501. You’re paying for it, and he’s going to have to do a much better job of explaining what codes on the form are confidential. Anything having to do with the materials being shipped isn’t confidential — that’s all under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which is an informed-compliance publication. And it’s not like any of the carrier codes are going to give away any trade secrets that you shouldn’t know about. Sounds VERY fishy to me…
If he won’t provide it to you, there is another alternative — you can file a Freedom of Information Act request with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to get that CF 7501. The process is a little more involved and takes longer, but at least at that point you’ll have a clearer picture of whether your customs broker is telling you the truth — if there IS any information on the CF 7501 that you shouldn’t see because it’s confidential, CBP will line through it with a black marker so you can’t read it. WARNING: You will have to pay a nominal fee that includes copying costs to get the CF 7501 from CBP.
One other thing you may want to try — contact another broker, preferably one of the major brokers like UPS Supply Chain Solutions or FedEx Trade Networks, and ask them what THEIR policy is about providing copies of the CF 7501 to their clients. Many customs brokers turn in entry packages to CBP by using “runners,” and the runners will drop a copy of the entry and run a copy of the entry under CBP’s electronic pressure-date-stamping system so they have proof that the entry was turned in by the runner on the specified date. If you tell a broker that you want proof that the entry summary was filed on time and that the duties, taxes and fees (if any) were also paid in a timely manner, the CF 7501 is usually their proof that this was done.
Ormsby Guitars – Rick’s DC – Handmade Custom