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Local News in Brief : Credit Cards at Customs

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The U.S. Customs Service announced Tuesday that it will install equipment at Los Angeles International Airport this week making LAX the fourth U.S. airport where people can pay customs duties by credit card.

Washington’s Dulles and Baltimore-Washington airports got the equipment in late October, while Customs officers at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York began accepting credit cards on Nov. 19, Customs spokesman Ed Kittredge said. Cash and personal checks will continue to be accepted, he said.

Customs agents collected about $31.25 million in 1986 in duties from Americans who bought goods abroad. The credit card service--the result of a contract signed recently with Security Pacific Corp. of Los Angeles--will not make any extra money for Customs, Kittredge said.

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By Feb. 1, credit card facilities also will be operating at airports in Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and Newark, N.J., he said.

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