Assists

QUESTION: There is overseas R&D taking place at two of my company’s overseas subsidiaries. The work they perform contributes to the engineering designs of many of the company’s products, which are either manufactured in the U.S. or manufactured overseas. Overseas manufacturing can take place at a third party subcontractor location, another overseas subsidiary location, or […]

QUESTION: We are operating currently under a Switzerland entity. The entity is global. Transactions that occur within the entity do not result in a financial transfer occurring on the books. For example, we are physically shipping material under the Switzerland entity in the U.S., to the Switzerland entity in Mexico. We have a value for […]

QUESTION: Is the cost of a feasibility study undertaken overseas, but paid for by a USA company considered an assist? ========== Answers: I think that the answer, in part, depends on who you paid for the study and what the study actually relates to. There is a rebuttable presumption that all payments made by a […]

QUESTION: I always thought that in order for valuation assists to be a required addition to the PAPP the importer also had to be the buyer and provider of the item/component/mold etc provided free of charge.   From the ICP Assist booklet – “An assist is any of the items listed below that the buyer […]

QUESTION: If we paid for a hangtag and ship directly to a supplier and then we bill the supplier and they pay us for the HT, do we still need to claim an assist with CBP ************ Answers: Depends on who pays for the shipping.  If you pay for the shipping and do not charge […]

QUESTION: I just found out that our company is shipping/supplying US origin components, purchased by my company from a US supplier, free of charge to a foreign vendor.   Upon receipt of the free US origin goods, the foreign vendor further processes the item by filling it with material made in that foreign country.  They […]

QUESTION: I was wondering if the ICPA community could share how they obtain information needed relating to Assists, Freight, and other charges that are not reflected in the price paid.    Since my organization has many divisions, the details needed to assess whether other payments to suppliers are Assists reside in the Divisions rather than at […]

QUESTION: We recently sold equipment to a related supplier for a reduced rate. Most of this equipment will be used to produce product that is sold back to us. We plan on claiming the value of the assists with the first shipment of goods that will be made on each machine to keep it simple. […]

QUESTION: Would temporary storage of goods in China be considered an Assist or addition to transactional value?     We will pay the vendor separately for this storage.     My first thought is that it would be exempted under International freight and related services incident to the international shipment of merchandise; however would like […]

QUESTION: We are a participant of the Recon program for Valuation and have decided to apportion the total value of the assists over the first shipment.  Can someone in the membership provide how to capture the first shipment?   Also, currently all of our entries are flagged but are looking into flagging only certain entries […]

QUESTION: We are a US company with cloned production in two other countries. We are purchasing a shared tool from a non-US supplier. Since the demand will be pulled from three different countries, it is impossible to definitively confirm how much of an assist value to claim to US Customs. Apart from amortizing the tooling […]