In the latest round of the ongoing battle between the U.S. Postal Service and private carriers, Postmaster General William J. Henderson last week angrily tore into a study claiming international USPS customers are paying less in import duties on express shipments from overseas than those of their private competitors.
The report, which Henderson called “nonsensical” when testifying at the House postal subcommittee oversight hearing on international postal policy, was defended by Joe Morris, executive director of the Air Courier Conference of America (ACCA), which commissioned it.
Morris said the report confirms that the U.S. Customs Service “is turning a blind eye” to international express shipments handled by the USPS resulting in more than $1 billion in lost revenue each year.
The study, conducted by consulting firm Wirthlin Worldwide, McLean, VA, between August 4 and 16 of last year, essentially claimed the U.S. Treasury is losing more than $1 billion a year because customs agents are slashing import duties on express shipments handled by the USPS while charging the full rate on shipments carried by private carriers such as Federal Express, DHL and United Parcel Service.
The Customs Service denied the claim.
Henderson, ripping into the study, told the panel chaired by Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), that the Wirthlin group “did not use a random sample of mail; did not use mail consistent with what is entered into the U.S. by foreign postal administrations; did not use a sufficiently large sample in its 12-day study which he further described as being intrinsically flawed in its assumptions methodology and conclusions.”
Admitting that “two different customs systems” do exist, Henderson defended them saying repeated studies by the General Accounting Office, (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, “found that two separate customs systems have developed over time for legitimate reasons” and are “consistent” with the guidelines of the Universal Postal Union, a trade group of international postal services.
He explained that the UPU’s guidelines are not intended for the high-volume business-to-business shipments handled by private carriers, but for individual consumers, pointing out that that 90% of the international mail is single-piece household-to-household mail and to expect manifesting by individuals is ridiculous because “you can’t expect one piece [of mail] to go commercially.”
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