Daily Archives: February 26, 2014

You Don’t Need Nuevo Esquema de Empresas Certificadas to Improve Cross-Border Shipping with Mexico

You just have to make sure that that the goods are picked up with a destination in the United States, not near the Mexican border, even if the customs broker tries to insist that the goods have to stop at a location near the border for dreyage or inspection under current regulations. The reason your broker wants the goods to stop at a Mexican border destination like Nuevo Laredo is because you have to pay the IVA (Impuesto al Valor Agregado), Mexico’s Value Added Tax, which he will then get a tax credit for when he ships the goods out of the United States.

Even though the proposed reforms in Nuevo Esquema de Empresas Certificadas, include:

  • flexibility on location,
  • direct clearance by companies,
  • pre-validation of electronic import and export data, and
  • the need to use a Mexican customs broker on the U.S. side of the border to release goods for entry into Mexico is eliminated.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if these rules are in effect now or not or if you have to use a Mexican trucker to move your goods, it matters whether or not you have to use a Mexican broker that insists on shipping your goods to a destination inside the Mexican border to collect IVA and dreyage at your expense. It’s like Mr. Locke pointed out in his piece on Cross-Border Shipping with Mexico last fall: some of the issues … are common in every country and the Mexican trucking industry is changing. A properly run IPO will get on-time delivery to your US customers in the 98% range over long periods of time … and that includes supplier performance, cross border performance and logistics performance in two countries and it will do so quite affordably if you’re smart about how you do things.

While the Nuevo Esquema de Empresas Certificadas, should it come into effect by year end, will make shipping easier, by making sure you’re doing everything right, and not using a double-dipping customs broker, you can improve cross-border shipping, and the associated cost, with Mexico now.