Question: During the recent chip shortage, our company had to resort to the secondary market to keep production of an item made in Europe from stopping altogether. We bought what we could find, paid exorbitant prices for them, split the extra cost with the manufacturer, then imported the finished goods to USA. On the one […]
Question: Scenario: U.S. Importer sends equipment to their MX Maquiladora. Equipment is sent under “Consignment Manufacturing” agreement. US IOR owns the inventory and machinery and equipment used by MX M., which provides manufacturing services in exchange for a processing fee. Is the equipment considered an U.S. Assist on future entries from the MX M.? Other […]
QUESTION: An importer paid for a tool that the manufacturer used to produce the product that is imported into the US and therefore an assist. However, if the shipment is DDP, where the manufacturer is the IOR into the US, they use their own broker (different from the importer’s broker). Is the tool still considered […]
QUESTION: We have a shipment with a piece of equipment that the importer has provided a component part free of charge to the manufacturer. We need to declare the value of this component at the time of entry. Does anyone have a basic Assist Letter that they can share? What info should be on the […]
QUESTION: Determining the value of an assist, should demurrage charges incurred at a foreign port be considered part of the “transportation costs” to the place of production? The Customs Valuation Encyclopedia is silent on this issue and we’re not finding any rulings that address this situation. %%%%%%%%%% ANSWERS: Demurrage charges are incurred while the goods […]
QUESTION: We have a scenario where we’ve had our foreign supplier purchase equipment to manufacture our products. We then reimburse our foreign supplier for that equipment. 1. If we reimburse the foreign supplier for the equipment and allow the foreign manufacturer to maintain title to the equipment, is an assist applicable? (We reimbursed, but do […]
QUESTION: If components are sent to a foreign supplier as an assist, and a portion of the components are scrapped, what proof is required by customs to prove they were actually scrapped so that duties are only paid on the usable amount? ************* Answers: In NL we require to also pay import duty on goods […]
QUESTION: We purchased some electrical components and supplied them to a machine manufacturer in Asia. The components were incorporated into the final completed machine and we are now ready to import the machine to the US. What is the proper way to show the assist value on the commercial invoice ( we will put the […]
QUESTION: We have some products that an domestic supplier is producing for us with a mold that they produced and we paid for. Our PO# is between us and the Domestic company. They are going to an overseas company in China to have the products made and they are importing the goods into the U.S. […]
QUESTION: We provide printed retail packaging to our overseas vendor. They manufacture, package and ship to us in the US ready for retail sale. Is this an assist? ========== Answers: “Retail packing” is not necessarily an assist but is “packing costs” and is to be added to the price actually paid or payable. See pages […]
QUESTION: We have a tooling, an assist, that we are providing to our vendor located in China. However, our vendor in China is asking us to ship to their other location in Hong Kong and they will create some sort of internal tooling contract to send the tooling to their location in China. This is because […]
QUESTION: We have 20 new items that have been made with tooling and associated productions costs for a total price that we paid to our vendor.The first production run of all these items is due in, and we want to pay the whole assist up front, on the first entry, since the item is a […]
