US importers may be noticing a surprise in their mailboxes. Many have been receiving invoices from US Customs for payment of additional merchandise processing fees (MPF) for entries filed between October 1 and November 5, 2011.
Why now? If you recall, CBP increased the MPF rate last October 1. Unfortunately, the agency did not complete programming to reflect the new rate for over a month, so entries filed in that window of time reflected the old rate. Now, CBP is retroactively billing entry filers for the difference in MPF charged.
Details are available here.