The National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) says it opposes the U.S. Customs Service's proposal to set a one-year statute of limitations on requests for refunds of the Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT). The league says it does not oppose the limit in principle but the one-year period is unreasonable.

If the proposal were to be adopted, the league says, "it would effectively bar any payer of quarterly HMTs from collecting refunds from Customs, unless the payer had 'properly filed' refund requests with Customs prior to the proposed rule's becoming final." NITL notes that shippers did not know until a recent court decision that they were entitled to make such filings.