The Irwin Brown Company:
Your Customs Broker and Forwarding Specialist

At The Irwin Brown Company, we ensure that all of your international transportation needs are met. In order to achieve this, we act in both the capacity of a customs broker and freight forwarder. Here is an explanation of our services and what we can do for you.

The Import Specialist:

The Customs Broker is a highly trained import professional licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Customs Broker possesses a thorough knowledge of tariff schedules and customs regulations and keeps abreast of frequent changes in law and administrative regulation. One need only look at the five thousand pages of customs regulations and thousands of tariff items to understand why this is such a complex job. A Broker must also be well versed in determining proper classification, dutiable value, and recognizing which commodities are subject to quota.
 
Brokers also help clients choose the mode of transportation, best carrier, and best routing for each shipment. There are estimates for landed costs, payments of goods through draft or letters of credit, insurance, and redelivery of cargo if there is more than one port of destination. In dealing with customers, the Broker must be aware of any potential problems involving each entry item represented. This includes all factors effecting appraisement, exchange rates, and the many regulations concerning calculation of duties. The Broker's operations often transcend customs, calling for contact with more than forty other governmental agencies, such as the United States Department of Agriculture on meat importations or the Environmental Protection Agency on vehicle emission standards.

The Transportation Architect:

Freight forwarders, licensed by the Federal Maritime Commission act as a coordinator to meet your transportation needs with the most efficiency. The Forwarder "shops" rates on a last minute basis to get their clients the best price on shipment moving by air, truck, rail, or sea. The Forwarder tailors the vast pool of resources at his or her command to the client's needs - finding the right match and making it work at the most cost effective rate. As global transportation becomes more and more complex, the job of the Forwarder becomes more difficult and essential. This calls for coordinating a multitude of financial, transport and other service activities; arranging to receive shipments for clients at any destination in the United States; negotiating consolidations of less than container loads; delivery to the ship's side; securing insurance coverage; and, if needed, arranging free domicile delivery abroad.