{"id":47574,"date":"2016-12-16T12:01:21","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T12:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/?p=47574"},"modified":"2016-12-16T12:01:21","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T12:01:21","slug":"bill-to-eliminate-customs-duties-clears-rules-committee-heads-to-full-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=47574","title":{"rendered":"Bill To Eliminate Customs Duties Clears Rules Committee, Heads To Full Body"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. THOMAS &#8212; Senator Nereida Rivera-O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s bill seeking to\u00a0eliminate customs duties was voted favorably out of the Committee on Rules and Judiciary, and forwarded to full Senate on Thursday at the Earl B. Ottley Legislative Hall here.<\/p>\n<p>Roughly $12 million is collected annually from customs duties in the territory. Originally, most of the funds \u2014 except a small portion that Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) kept for operations \u2014 went to the Government of the Virgin Islands.\u00a0But following the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, C.B.P. started keeping all of the funds for its local operations.<\/p>\n<p>During the bill&#8217;s hearing in the Committee on Finance, senators agreed that C.B.P. was in violation of an <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/virgin-islands-2\/long-standing-dispute-resolved-between-v-i-government-u-s-customs-and-border-patrol\/\" target=\"_blank\">agreement signed during the Governor John P. de Jongh administration<\/a><\/span> \u2014 which saw the parties agreeing to C.B.P.\u00a0funding air passenger pre-departure clearance with federal funds, among other clauses.\u00a0The agreement was to afford the Virgin Islands the ability\u00a0to request new or enhanced C.B.P. services on a reimbursable basis, and set in place\u00a0a reporting system that would allow the V.I.\u00a0Government to track C.B.P.\u2019s costs in the territory in order to ensure it is not overcharged for C.B.P.\u2019s costs of collecting V.I. customs duties. But the agreement was never enforced.<\/p>\n<p>Department of Finance Commissioner Valdamier Collens, who had introduced a proposal similar to that of Mrs. Rivera-O\u2019Reilly\u2019s in 2015, testified <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/breaking-news\/bill-eliminate-customs-duties-inches-closer-becoming-law\/\" target=\"_blank\">last month<\/a><\/span> in favor of the measure, and asked that the bill be amended to give the federal government 180 days to adjust. Mr. Collens was asked by Senator Novelle Francis, whether the local government had considered the ramifications that could follow such a move. Mr. Collens said agencies like C.P.B., Coast Guard and other Homeland Security arms that serve in the territory are already federally funded. And he said that federal employees that are currently dedicated to collecting customs duties, would be free \u201cto do more for the territory; they don\u2019t have to collect duties anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Senators amended the bill to eliminate customs duties on all goods if the federal government does not allow the local government to either collect all the funds, or limit C.B.P.\u2019s collection from the $12 million to no more than 20 percent. The new rules would take effect following the expiration of the 2014 memorandum of understanding signed between C.P.B. and former Governor John P. de Jongh.<\/p>\n<p>Voting to forward the measure to the full Senate were Senators Justin Harrigan, Sr., Jean Forde, Novelle Francis, Kenneth Gittens and Neville James. Mrs. Rivera-O&#8217;Reilly was absent, and Janette Millin Young voted no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ST. THOMAS &#8212; Senator Nereida Rivera-O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s bill seeking to\u00a0eliminate customs duties was voted favorably out of the Committee on Rules and Judiciary, and forwarded to full Senate on Thursday at the Earl B. Ottley Legislative Hall here. Roughly $12 million is collected annually from customs duties in the territory. Originally, most of the funds \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[191,147],"tags":[6067,121],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bill To Eliminate Customs Duties Clears Rules Committee, Heads To Full Body - V.I. Consortium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find Virgin Islands new, opinion, politics, lifestyle, business and more\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=47574\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ernice Gilbert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=47574\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=47574\",\"name\":\"Bill To Eliminate Customs Duties Clears Rules Committee, Heads To Full Body - V.I. 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I've been the Editor-In-Chief at my videogames website, Gamesthirst, for over 5 years, writing over 7,000 articles and more than 2 million words. I'm also very passionate about where I live, the United States Virgin Islands, and I'm intent on making it a better place by being resourceful and keeping our leaders honest. VI Consortium was birthed out of said desire, hopefully my efforts bear fruit. Reach me at ernice@viconsortium.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/ernicegilbert.com\/\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bill To Eliminate Customs Duties Clears Rules Committee, Heads To Full Body - V.I. 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