Client
A leading supplier of graphite products and carbon additives throughout North America.
Challenge
An importer of more than $25 million in goods annually with a significant export customer base was hit with substantial “section 301” duties following their imposition in 2018. The products had been entirely duty-free, and as such, a sudden 25% duty became a substantial detriment to their profitability and threatened the business’s survival. In addition, because of the duty-free products, they had never sought ways to reduce or get refunded duties when JMR contacted them as a potential candidate for duty drawback.
Solution
Upon examination of not just the articles subject to the 25% China duties but their entire supply chain, JMR found that they exported roughly 85% of their duty-paid imports to Mexico and, as such, were eligible to be claimed for refund under unused direct identification drawback. J.M. Rodgers obtained access to their A.C.E (Automated Commercial Environment) data and worked with the client to create systems to capture the data and documents needed to file a drawback. Getting a complete picture of their data from a few sources initially proved a challenge for the client. Still, with JMR’s expertise in making data work, our development team captured everything needed to file all the necessary paperwork and data to obtain refunds.
Results
By setting up an unused direct-ID 1313J1 duty drawback program for the client, J.M. Rodgers helped them claim several million dollars in China duties, which was a matter of survival. The impact of these new tariffs was dramatically lessened on the customer’s bottom line, so they faced much fewer adverse effects from the new expenses.
