Enforceability of Article 81 of the Customs Law Regulations, deferred to January 2, 2019.

International trade and customs Newsletter

April 20, 2018

On April 20, 2015, a reform to the Customs Law Regulations was published in the Federal Official Gazette. Within this reform, article 81 becomes relevant, which establishes the elements that the importer must provide attached to the customs value declaration of the goods to be imported. The importer must attach, upon the entry into force of said article, the following documents:

Commercial invoice;
Bill of lading or airway bill, packing list and other documents related to freight;
Documents related to the goods’ origin;
Documents related to customs guarantees when the goods have a lower declared value than the authorities’ estimated prices
Commercial invoice payments;
Transport and insurance payments;
Purchase agreements;
Evidence for value added (customs value), such as expenses related to goods management, loading and unloading, royalties and trademark license rights related to the goods subject to customs valuation, among others established in the Customs Law; and,
Any other information and documentation related to the goods’ customs value.

Due to the complexity for importers of compliance with such Article for each import operation, after the reform at hand was published, its entry into force has been extended.

The Article was supposed initially to enter into force on September 1, 2015. However, through the Third Resolution of Amendments to the General Foreign Trade Rules published on August 31, 2015, its entry into force was extended until January 15th, 2016.

Also, through the Sixth Resolution of Amendments to the General Foreign Trade Rules published on December 24, 2015, the entry into force of Article 81 was extended for the second time to enter into force on October 17, 2016.

Additionally, on October 19, 2016, the Second Resolution of Amendments to the General Foreign Trade Rules was published and the entry into force of article 81 was extended for the third time, until June 1, 2017.

On September 1, 2017, a reform to the General Foreign Trade Rules was published, establishing that Article 81 would not enter into force during 2017.

The purpose of this bulletin is to announce that on April 20, 2018, the First Resolution of Amendments to General Foreign Trade Rules for 2018 was published, establishing that Article 81 will enter into force January 2, 2019.

As previously noted, within the elements required by Article 81 to be attached to the customs value declaration of each operation, are those related to payment of goods, such as electronic transfer or letter of credit, as well as those contracts related to the transaction of the goods. The aforementioned becomes relevant, since imported goods are generally purchased by importers under credit schemes that generally consist in paying the goods post importation and, consequently, there will be a serious problem for many importers with respect to this requirement.

With respect to the rest of the elements that the importer will need to attach to the customs value declaration, once Article 81 enters into force, the amount of information that importers will need to attach to the customs value declaration is certainly a concern, as well as the complexity that global operations may face, such as in the case of global insurance policies and global freight contracts.

For all the above mentioned, we strongly suggest that importers keep in mind Article 81, and establish internal preventive measures to ensure compliance with said Article, due to its imminent entry into force.

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We trust this bulletin is useful. The members of the Foreign Trade and Customs Practice Group from Sánchez-DeVanny can support you with preventive schemes to determine the level of compliance with article 81, and provide you further information about the topic discussed here or any other topic.

This newsletter was prepared by

Turenna Ramirez Ortiz (tramirez@sanchezdevanny.com);

Eduardo Sotelo Cauduro (esotelo@sanchezdevanny.com);

Sheidel Chareni Francioli Diaz (sfrancioli@sanchezdevanny.com);

Fernando Josue Mancilla Hinojosa (fmancilla@sanchezdevanny.com);

Alejandro Ferro Fong (aferro@sanchezdevanny.com).

Contact
Turenna Ramirez-Ortíz tramirez@sanchezdevanny.com
José Alberto Campos-Vargas jacampos@sanchezdevanny.com