10 hours ago, Don Mansfield said:

If the contract includes FAR 52.229-3, Federal, State, and Local Taxes, then the contractor could be compensated for an after-imposed federal tax. This includes duties (a tariff is a type of duty).

I’d be careful about equating “tariffs” and “duties” with “taxes”.

The 52.229-3 clause refers to “tax(es) and dut(ies)” and “taxes or duties”, both in the singular and plural senses. They are distinctly addressed in the clause.

Yes, I agree with Don that this clause may* allow an adjustment (up or down) for after award changes to or imposed duties, as stated in multiple posts.

And yes, I agree with Don that a tariff is a type of duty, as stated in multiple posts and in numerous references.

*The 52.229-3 clause excepts or limits such adjustments where and to the extent that the contract price already includes contingencies for increases in excise taxes or duties.

Researching to source a new control module and determine what would be required took me about 8 hours on the Internet and visiting-consulting with my favorite tranny shop and the local Jeep dealer. Efficient Commercial practices. Hmm.

Speaking of commercial practices I recently tried to find the part number for a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee transmission control module for my friend’s widow living in Namibia. She also has a 2014 GC.

The service rep at a local Jeep dealer here in AL told me that Jeep only supports spare parts for Jeeps for ten model years. He couldn’t find part numbers for either of her model year Jeeps even the US models.

I said that sounded stupid. He agreed but indicated that it isn’t just Jeep.

Part of the problem is that Jeep/Chrysler has gone through several owner changes since the 1980’s. But he claimed that other domestic auto manufacturers are going the same way.

To complicate the problem, my friend’s Jeeps were produced in Austria by a plant under contract to Daimler Benz. He said they have transmissions made by Mercedes or other European or Asian suppliers but couldn’t find that information. They weren’t importing transmissions from the US suppliers.

The local service rep tried unsuccessfully to find the VIN numbers for her Jeeps in their Jeep system and on the Internet.

I had found secondary sources for domestic Jeep tranny control modules on the internet but they were for US made Jeeps without the parts numbers. They were running between $100-$200. I suppose that I could have contacted those sources for part numbers.

I did learn that the control module is inside the transmission, requiring removal and tear down. So we wouldn’t be able to know the part number without a tranny removal and tear down.

She lives on a farm that is 150 kilometers from the nearest transmission/Jeep firms. The Jeep will only run in first and second gear at about 20KPH. She said it would be a ten hour drive.

She is a widow and can’t afford a tow thst far. I told her that a $2800 tranny repair on her low mileage Jeep would be better than having to buy a newer vehicle.

So, it isn’t wise in my opinion to simply make general assumptions that commercial practices by original manufacterers are “efficient” or are “best practices”.

1 hour ago, WifWaf said:

I meant they are fixed-price commercial. Edited it above. Thanks, Joel.

Are you recalling a time when the engines were government-developed?

I’m referring to sourcing parts to repair government owned aircraft through the aircraft maker rather from the parts manufacturers.

On 5/23/2025 at 11:59 AM, WifWaf said:

If you have any experience working with a prime contractor that has many aircraft engine part suppliers, you may recognize that adoption of this would be alignment to industry best practices. You know those practices must be good because those engine manufacturers are mostly fixed-price and so have all the risk - therefore they do things efficiently.

I love that one. Reminds me of the $1000 bolts, $650 toilet seats Hundred dollar hammers, etc. when sourcing all parts through the prime aircraft manufacturer.

It. Will certainly be interesting.

In my over forty years in the military and government I found that very few in the military or the government mission or in acquisition treat the taxpayer’s money like their own. They generally weren’t interested in economy or saving money.

The mission users and program managers simply “wanted it all” and wanted to spend up the budget so they wouldn’t face future budget reductions for failure to spend it all.

—-————————————————————

The Air Force in particular had Rolls Royce tastes, desires and demands even when on Yugo budgets, when it came to acquiring facilities.

When I was in the Air Force in the early 1970’s, the USAF was essentially broke. We only had enough money to use the xerox machine in our office for about the first 15 days of each month. If I need to contact any commercial business or any non-DOD entity by phone that wasn’t a local call to an installation with Autovon, I would have to charge calls to my personal phone number.

In my opinion, the desire for Ferrari quality, features and grandeur was realized after Ronald Reagan tripled the Defense Budget over three years, faster than DOD could fully define programs to spend it all. The strategy was to essentially bankrupt he Soviet Union in attempting to keep up with the US DOD. It worked.In my opinion,

But once the trend was established there was no retreat from unbridled desires.

For many years, almost every new USAF construction project contract was awarded well above 100% of the Programmed Amount. They were crafty though. Every year they put enough lower priority projects in the AF MILCON Program to fund the overruns to award new contracts or pay for changes. I forget what the statutory limit on individual project costs was (maybe 125% of the Programmed amount?) but it wasn’t uncommon to get close to the statutory limit.

Many organizations, including those I worked for tend to be self perpetuating bureaucracies. They need to come up with new requirements to justify their existence.

Deleted.

I. Suggest that you ask the office that issued the document with the conflict in it.

“Interested to know if and how FAR 2.0 will address brand name / peculiar items in particular.”

How about the Competition in Contracting Act as a statutory basis? Admission - didnt read CICA sources today. Too busy at the moment…

5 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

Moreover, buying in the private sector and buying in the public sector are different because the public sector pursues broader goals.

Did they really leave any broader goals or any goals in the draft Part 1 rewrite? That’s a rhetorical question…

On 5/6/2025 at 7:52 AM, C Culham said:

@realquiet Big "IF". My experience would suggest that most contractors in any setting are not in 100% compliance with even their own terms and conditions. If you look hard I suspect you can find the leverage to strongly suggest they should cooperate or otherwise they are gone as to me the leverage does not have to be for the specific issue. Or as noted another element of negotiation.

Well, if this prime ends up having to pay this sub more than the prime can justify to the government, the sub may have cooked its own goose for future work with this prime -thus why I suggest dangling the cooperation carrot to the sub.

23 hours ago, General.Zhukov said:

How big a change would this be? What are the implications?

Based upon my interaction with and participation in some proposed reg updates, I’d say that, at least for the topics that I was involved with, the little “c” staffers and even subject matter proponents didn’t know the subject matter and often the implications of proposed language for revisions. Heck, even the industry proponents on industry committees that I knew or was a member of often didn't know either.

1 hour ago, jtolli2 said:

The FAR will retain only the provisions required by statute or essential to efficient, secure, and cost-effective procurement.

Well, if Part 1 is representative of this premise, it pretty well eliminated any overarching principles.

EDIT: I generally agree with Vern’s assessment.

Wow, @realquiet. I don’t know if you are a new government contractor. This should be a lesson learned not to accept or offer contract terms and conditions to subs that contradict your prime contract terms and conditions. Doing so can put your company at risk to owe a sub more than the government will pay you in a modification, REA or claim situation..

9 hours ago, C Culham said:

Kind of a repeat.....but,

Yep they do. There is not privy of contract between your sub and the Government. Or as stated absent some subcontract language to require the supplier to provide you are at the mercy of your sub.

What to do? Get a new sub? Provide the detail as the prime and hope it fits what your sub is telling you? Take your dilemma to your CO and ask them what they would like you to provide. If they say they want it from the sub and on the subs letterhead then you might be back to - get a new sub if the sub does not want to cooperate?

@realquiet, If the subcontractor is in compliance with its subcontract terms and conditions, I don’t think you have any grounds legally to terminate the subcontractor for default.

You may have a little bit of leverage in negotiating with the subcontractor to provide the information above and beyond the current subcontract terms and conditions. If you have an ongoing relationship And/or if the sub wants more work in the future from you, you might twist their arm a bit or coax them and say something to the effect “Hey, please cooperate here if you want to continue doing business with us. The Government won’t pay us unless we provide the required details. “ Negotiate, using the carrot of future business.

Other than that, I don’t think you have legal grounds to stand on with the sub to make the government pay you what the sub is demanding that you pay them, without adequate breakdown of costs, markups and time adjustments.

5 minutes ago, Retreadfed said:

What do you mean by recapture? Do you mean can you use the funds for a new requirement?

I would think that you have access to a finance and accounting office but generally, funding sources that are expired (e.g. prior fiscal year) are not available for “new requirements” that are independent of the de-committed funds. Also, not sure there was an obligation if it wasn’t presented to the intended contractor. If you have legal counsel, consult with them.

19 hours ago, Neil Roberts said:

@realquiet, if a stop work clause was included in the prime contract, it should have been flowed to the supplier with proper alteration of the parties. The changes clause requirements in the prime contract can be considered applicable to the stop work clause order. The order should be flowed from the prime to the supplier. Prime contractors should always include a changes clause in supplier contracts. Such clause should indicate that the supplier agrees to submit a "fully supported" proposal to the prime, or similar language. If so, the supplier can be held in default of its contract with the prime if it does not agree to submit to the prime the detailed information you mentioned,

Regardless of the existing subcontractor language, if you, the contractor, want the government to reimburse you for subcontractor delay impact costs and your related costs, you will have to get the sub to provide the necessary detail to support its impacted time and costs.

Along the lines of Carl’s post, can the actual tasks at each installation be quantified and estimated? You indicated that it is “performed overnight”.

It seems to me that you would be paying for travel labor either directly or indirectly, anyway.if contractor will have to estimate such time and factor it into the labor hour rates.

Is there a likelihood of local commuting for some of the work, you can specify that the government won’t pay for travel hours for local commuting to such work or commuting between hotel and worksite, etc.

The contract clause requires YOU the contractor to provide supporting details for YOUR equitable adjustment. A subcontract term and condition that is at odds with Your requirement doesnt override your requirement. If you want an equitable adjustment that is based upon or includes subcontractor costs, you must provide reasonably required supporting cost, markup and time impact details.

On 4/8/2025 at 4:51 PM, Don Mansfield said:

Was it 1-year money?

It appears to be.

23 hours ago, C Culham said:

I do wonder what "shall"s and "must"s will disappear. After all "shall" appears eleven times in this EO “Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement”

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪

Do you actually have a concern about 1102 series being converted to a schedule under the Excepted Service, not specifically “Schedule F” ? That could be a possibility.

Might be a good thing for the Nation.

I don’t know if the 2020 EO is still current or has been reissued or revised from the referenced one.

From Wikipedia:under “Excepted Service”

“Excepted service”

“The excepted service is the part of the United States federal civil servicethat is not part of either the competitive service or the Senior Executive Service. It allows streamlined hiring processes to be used under certain circumstances.”

• “Schedule Policy/Career appointments, formerly known as Schedule F appointments apply to "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions."[5]”

“[5] • "Executive Order on Creating Schedule F In The Excepted Service". whitehouse.gov. 2020-10-21. Archived from the original on 2021-01-30. Retrieved 2020-10-24 – via National Archives.”