September 3, 2024 – U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General: CBP Needs to Improve Its Oversight and Monitoring of Penalty Cases
Our Recommendations
From our limited testing, we did not identify a systemic issue in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lost revenue due to expired statute of limitations. We reviewed 152 penalty cases, totaling $858.1 million, and determined that 144 (95 percent) were either closed, settled, in litigation, or submitted to the Treasury Offset Program. The statute of limitations no longer applied to these cases. The remaining eight penalty cases, totaling $1.5 million (0.2 percent) had expired and were subsequently closed. However, this does not equate to $1.5 million in lost revenue because CBP is allowed to close cases, for example, when the cost of continuing to pursue the case would exceed the potential amount to be recovered. To assess CBP’s penalty case process, we evaluated CBP’s oversight and monitoring functions, which included reviewing related policies and procedures. Despite not identifying lost revenue due to expired statute of limitations, we found CBP did not maintain effective oversight of penalty cases, which may hinder CBP’s ability to collect revenue in these instances. Additionally, CBP guidance requires headquarters to conduct oversight surveys of at least 2 of its 42 Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures field offices each fiscal year. However, given the number of field offices, if CBP conducted only the required minimum two surveys per year, 21 years could pass between surveys for each field office. Without routine field office surveys, CBP cannot ensure it effectively monitors field office compliance with established standards related to the penalty case process.
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