How Your Business Can Take Advantage of Section 301 Tariff Refunds

If you’re a U.S. company importing from China, you may have tens of thousands or even millions in tariff refunds waiting for you. With two-thirds of Chinese origin goods subject to Section 301 tariffs, companies large and small have been impacted since they were implemented in 2018 amid a U.S.-China trade war. Currently, 301 tariffs are extremely broad, covering industries from food and beverage, industrial supplies, transport equipment, consumption goods, and fuels and lubricants, to name a few. And now is your chance to get a refund on some of those extra duty payments via 301 exclusions before a vast majority of them expire on Dec. 31. These exclusions offer just the kind of cost-savings so many companies are looking for as we face a volatile economy and pandemic.

 

Taking advantage of duty recovery

If you’re not familiar, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) implemented the exclusion process for 301 tariffs when they were first enacted in 2018. This opportunity provided businesses the chance to request an exclusion and/or submit for duty recovery on exclusions that were already available.

Looking across our own customers, we identified a potential duty recovery refund of roughly $980 million. However, we found the timeliness and complexities of navigating the amount of exclusions can be overwhelming for small and large companies alike. And we get it, without the right data, technology and expertise the process to compare your HTS codes against hundreds of exclusions can take hours, and that’s without considering that over 96% are product-specific which require an even deeper level of analysis. With C.H. Robinson’s technology built by and for supply chains and global suite of services, we’re able to decrease the amount of time needed in the complex and lengthy refund recovery process. Through our global trade experts and single, multimodal, global technology platform Navisphere®, we utilize data comparison and analysis tools to quickly reveal your refund potential.

We have already helped hundreds of companies take advantage of the refunds for which they qualify. One of the companies we assisted was Wheel Pros, a large wheel design and distribution company, in submitting for a substantial refund. Keep in mind, large refunds are not only for large companies, our global trade experts have helped multiple small and mid-sized businesses uncover and submit for large refunds.

 

Keeping up with global trade changes

While the majority of current exclusions are set to expire on Dec. 31, we’ve been around long enough to know the only constant in global trade is change. So, we also created a Trade & Tariffs Insights webpage to help you keep up with it. It’s like having your very own global trade concierge service with weekly updates on the changing global trade marketplace along with custom insights and commentary from our leading global trade experts to help you make sense of it all. Trade and Tariff Insights cover topics like tariffs, exclusions and any other trade or compliance issues you need to know about. That way, you can focus on operating your business.

To learn more, visit Trade & Tariffs Insights. You can also reach out to one of our trade experts to explore your refund potential for 301 tariffs before time runs out.

Mike Short
President, Global Forwarding
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