Customs — Duty Optimization (Opportunity Cost)

Industry front door for opportunity-cost. Adds domain triggers, example, packs only. Parent Process unchanged. Not legal advice. Each program has strict eligibility; verify with counsel/CBP before relying on savings.

Activate when: an importer has recurring, material duty spend; evaluating FTZ, duty drawback, first-sale valuation, bonded warehouse, or FTA use; "are we leaving duty savings on the table?" Do NOT activate when: de minimis / trivial duty where program cost exceeds benefit.

Why this variant

The parent opportunity-cost measures the value of the best foregone alternative. Every duty dollar paid when a lawful program would have avoided/deferred it is a foregone saving. This surfaces those foregone alternatives and sizes them against setup cost.

Domain inputs → parent's Process

Enumerate lawful alternatives and their net value vs status quo:

• Duty drawback: refund on duties for re-exported/destroyed goods (up to 99%).
• Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ): defer/reduce/eliminate duty; inverted-tariff benefit.
• First-sale valuation: dutiable value = earlier bona fide sale price in multi-tier transactions.
• FTA/preference (see USMCA variant), bonded warehouse (deferral).
• Weigh each program's admin/setup cost; opportunity cost = savings foregone by not adopting the best-fit one.