Importers Must Avoid 10 Dubious Tariff-Saving Strategies Amid CBP Enforcement Shift
Multinational importers and in-house customs compliance teams must avoid aggressive tariff-avoidance tactics, as CBP’s data-driven enforcement increasingly targets these strategies for audits and significant penalties.
The final installment of this customs enforcement series details 10 high-risk, often unlawful tariff-saving tactics importers pursue to cut landed costs, including misclassification to avoid Section 232/301 duties, underreporting dutiable assists and royalties, and unbundling costs to lower declared value. CBP now uses cross-entry data analytics to flag anomalous patterns like sudden classification shifts or outlier valuation compared to peer importers. Importers should conduct regular, product-focused classification and valuation reviews led by legal counsel, avoid outcome-driven customs planning, and ensure cross-functional teams (procurement, engineering) disclose all relevant costs to customs staff to reduce enforcement exposure.