CBP Revokes Two Rulings on LCDs, Affirms Previous LCD Ruling
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9013.80.70 is correctly used to classify several types of liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, despite a push otherwise from the importer of the LCDs, CBP said in an Aug. 2 ruling. A company previously known as Optrex, which is now part of Kyocera Industrial Ceramics, asked CBP to reconsider a 2009 ruling in which the agency found some LCDs that would be installed following import to be classified under 9013.80.70. CBP said it was correctly using a "principal use" provision in the original ruling. As a result of the request, CBP also decided to revoke two rulings that Optrex's lawyer, Larry Friedman of Barnes Richardson, pointed to due to differing consideration of similar merchandise.
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The goods in question are three types of thin-film transistor (TFT) LCDs that are used in aviation, marine, automobile or medical settings. Optrex questioned the 2009 ruling (here) and asked if the TFT LCDs should have been instead classified under 9013.80.90 as “other” devices, appliances and instruments. The issue "is whether the instant modules are of a kind used for items other than monitors of heading 8528," said CBP. The goods were classified in 2009 as 9013.80.70, which accounts for “flat panel displays other than for articles of heading 8528, except subheading 8528.51 or 8528.60.” Much of the new ruling, HQ H071899, addresses the use of heading 8528, which applies to “Monitors and projectors, not incorporating television reception apparatus; reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus.”
While Optrex said CBP was going beyond the requirements of statuary language by incorrectly using an "actual use provision," the agency disagreed. Based on the Court of International Trade's look at actual use provisions in Clarendon Marketing v. U.S., the use of such a provision would mean "require an affirmative showing that flat panels displays are not installed into monitors of heading 8528, HTSUS, within three years of entry in order to be classified in subheading 9013.80.70." Instead, the HTS phrasing "indicates that products of a class or kind used with items other than certain monitors of heading 8528, HTSUS, are included within the subheading," said CBP.
The fact that the LCDs in question aren't classifiable under 8528 doesn't prove that they are made to be used for something other than a monitor classified in 8528, said CBP. The LCD modules as imported "are indistinguishable from the LCD screens featured in monitors," the agency said. "To that end, even though the aviation and marine equipment, in-car and in-flight entertainment systems, or medical equipment into which the subject LCD modules are ultimately installed are not themselves monitors described by heading 8528 ... they are surely flat panel displays of a kind for monitors of heading 8528."
CBP also noted heading 8528 was updated through 2007 HTS changes, which also affects subheading 9013.80370. The 2007 changes broadened the types of monitors of displays covered by 8528, meaning there is now a smaller number of flat panel displays that would be considered to fall outside of 8528, said CBP. Optrex also pointed to two rulings, NY M82094 (2006) (here) and HQ 966487 (2003) (here), which considered the classification of LCDs. As a result of the 2007 changes, those two rulings are now mistaken and revoked, CBP said. The merchandise in those rulings will now be classified under 9013.80.90, which has a duty rate of 4.5 percent, said CBP.