Selling Abandoned Merchandise

How the U.S. Customs Service Could Increase Revenues Gao ID: GGD-83-79 September 30, 1983

GAO evaluated the U.S. Customs Service's program for the disposal of merchandise, which was abandoned for more than a year by importers and stored by Customs in public or private warehouses.

GAO found that Customs could increase the net sale proceeds of its auctions of abandoned merchandise by revising procedures and strengthening program controls. A review of five auctions showed that: (1) a shorter storage period would have reduced storage expenses and increased net revenues by $71,131 if the merchandise could have been sold 6 months sooner, or $94,093 if it could have been sold 9 months sooner; (2) Customs incurred additional storage costs of $335,870 because it did not remove merchandise from storage when the 1-year storage period expired because of staff shortages; and (3) Customs could have realized additional duties of about $8,060 if it had better implemented existing procedures for collecting and disposing of proceeds from the sale of bonded merchandise.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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