All CBP Refunds Are Now Electronic – Get Your Account Ready If It Isn’t Already Prepared

Many companies in the ASA community are anticipating refund applications based on the recent Supreme Court case (Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump) that ruled some IEEPA tariffs to be illegal, and the Court of International Trade tariff order directing the duties to be refunded.

There are reports that today, CBP amended its order, to remove the “immediacy” from the requirement to issue refunds. But the refunds still have to be issued. CBP is creating the CAPE system within ACE and has suggested that it could be ready within 45 days of the CIT order (so, mid-to-late-April).

In order to make use of the CAPE system – indeed in order to receive any refund – you will need an ACE account. This is because CBP recently changed the rules to require all refunds to be processed through the ACE system. Some importers rely on their customs broker or their carrier to process all of the imports, and may not yet have an ACE account. If that is your situation, then now is the time to obtain an ACE account.

The expected tariff refund process will be something like this:

1. File a declaration that itemizes the entries on which you’ve paid IEEPA-based duties; this will be filed within the ACE system (probably within the CAPE subsystem)
2. The ACE system validates the application against its own data and recalculates the duty owed without the IEEPA tariffs (to verify the refund amount)
3. CBP verifies the declaration and processes the refunds
4. CBP liquidates or reliquidates each validated entry
5. The ACE system should allow CBP to certify that the refund is owed and then the refund will be released by the Treasury
6. The refund will be deposited in the bank account that you registered for electronic refunds, through your ACE account

U.S. CBP has published a number of resources to assist in obtaining ACE accounts and setting them up to process refunds.