COTTON FEE – Rate Lowered and De Minimis rule eliminated

The Agricultural Marketing Services have modified their rule for the collection of Cotton Fees.  One of the impacts is the elimination of the “de minimis” rule.  CBP has corrected their (ACE entry) operating system to properly report and collect the formerly small (de minimis) dollar amounts of Cotton Fees.  Following is a posting by the Agriculture Marketing Services.  Summary: The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is amending the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations to remove the cotton import de minimis provision. The Cotton Research and Promotion (R&P) Program assesses U.S. cotton producers and importers of cotton and cotton-containing products. Importers are exempt from paying the cotton import assessment (known commonly among importers as the “cotton fee”) if a line item on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) documentation is $2.00 or less. The exemption was initially established to lessen the administrative burden of collecting an import assessment, which was originally estimated to be $2.00 per line item, in instances in which the transactions costs of the collection would exceed the actual value of the assessment; however, technological advances in the CBP documentation process significantly reduced the transactions costs associated with collecting import assessments, and CBP has since stopped charging USDA for the processing and collecting of assessments. Given that transactions costs no longer exceed assessment rates of $2.00 or less, AMS is removing this de minimis provision from the regulations. In addition, the definition of cotton with respect to procedures for conducting the sign-up period is being modified.

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