The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Department of the Treasury and U.S. Customs and Border Protection; all importers of record
- Level
- Federal
- Authority
- 19 U.S.C. 1318(a)
- Issued
- 2020-04-20 Apr. 20, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-04-20
- End
- applies to entries in March and April 2020; postponed deposits due 90 days after the original due date (through July 2020) (read as 2020-09-30)
- In force
- Apr. 20, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2020
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Other
- Addressees
- importers of record with significant financial hardship
- customs brokers
- sureties
- Functions reached
- CB importers whose operations were suspended by orders limiting commerce, travel or group meetings
- SC imported goods
- OP brokers and sureties
- Collection
- Coast Guard and ports AGY-USCG-PORTS
Operative words
24.1a Temporary Postponement of Deadline to Deposit Certain Estimated Duties, Taxes, and Fees Because of the COVID-19 National Emergency (a) General. Pursuant to the authority of 19 U.S.C. 1318(a), subject to the conditions in paragraphs (a)(1) through (4) of this section, the deadline for the deposit of estimated duties, taxes, and fees that an importer of record would ordinarily be obligated to pay as of the date of entry, or withdrawal from warehouse, for consumption, of imported merchandise into the United States is postponed for a period of 90 days from the date that the deposit would otherwise have been due.... (2) An importer will be considered to have a significant financial hardship if the operation of such importer is fully or partially suspended during March or April 2020 due to orders from a competent governmental authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings because of COVID-19, and as a result of such suspension, the gross receipts of such importer for March 13-31, 2020, or April 2020 are less than 60 percent of the gross receipts for the comparable period in 2019.
Enforcement
19 U.S.C. 1318(a); 19 C.F.R. 24.1a(a)(2) (books and records); 19 U.S.C. 1505 otherwise
Notes
The preamble states that importers 'are experiencing significant financial hardship with operations fully or partially suspended during March or April 2020 due to orders from competent governmental authorities imposing limits on commerce, travel, or group meetings because of COVID-19' and that 'Employees are having difficulty getting to work.' A federal regulation resting on the same factual premise as the Suspension Clause.
Retrieval noteFederal Register pages read in full (85 Fed. Reg. 22349-22352).