Studies Say U.S. Slow to Collect ‘Dumping’ Fines

WASHINGTON — The government has severe management problems--including a 24-year backlog of cases--in its program to levy penalty duties on artificially inexpensive imports, according to two separate investigations.

The probes, by a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee and the U.S. Customs Service, documented the government’s difficulties in collecting tariffs on goods dumped into the United States at below-market prices. The levies are designed to protect U.S. businesses from unfair foreign competition.

The Senate report said that in some instances, Customs Service field officers allowed below-market shipments to enter without levying any anti-dumping duties.

Senate investigators also discovered that between 400 and 500 tariff bills that were appealed remained unresolved by the Commerce Department for as long as 10 years. These are cases where determinations have already been made that money is owed the government.

The poor administration of the program “means that the United States is failing to counter the foreign companies that unfairly injure American business,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the subcommittee on oversight of government management, whose staff conducted one of the investigations.