Electronic Payment Eases HMF Procedures
Zone operators looking for an easier way to handle the payment and refund procedures for quarterly harbor maintenance fees (HMF) should take note. A recent Federal Register Notice (FRN) has outlined new procedures from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that makes electronic payment of HMF an option. According to the FRN, “CBP will continue to accept quarterly payments or refund requests via mail. These changes are intended to provide the trade with expanded electronic payment/refund options and to modernize and enhance CBP’s port use fee collection efforts.”
If your FTZ operations were almost paperless except for this one payment/refund process, then once you initiate this automatic processing of HMF, you will have completely paperless zone operations. Zone operators will now be able to eliminate the time-consuming task of filling out paperwork and mailing in each request.
For those of you that have already begun using the CBP payment site – www.pay.gov – you only need to add the HMF option to your payment list and you’ll be ready to go. If you don’t have an account at www.pay.gov, you will need to set one up to begin processing HMF electronically. Benefit of this – you can also process a lot of other payments through the same site, thus eliminating more paperwork and time-consuming processes in operating your zone.
Still confused about which form is needed when submitting HMF payments or refund requests? According to this FRN, both HMF supplemental payments and refund requests must be accompanied by the CBP Form 350 (HMF Amended Quarterly Summary Report) and the CBP Form 349 (HMF Quarterly Summary Report).
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