ITC to Begin Accepting MTB Petitions
The International Trade Commission issued a notice (here) requesting petitions starting Oct. 14 for duty suspensions and reductions as part of its role in the federal review process for miscellaneous tariff bills (MTB), whose final approval must come from Congress. Petitions will be accepted until 5:15 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 12. The MTB petitioning platform will ask applicants for information on customs rulings on products claimed for duty benefits, names of other importers of the products, and any antidumping or countervailing duty orders, among other things, ITC officials said during an Oct. 12 in-person walk-through of the agency’s new MTB portal. "If it’s a private-letter ruling, which is something a petitioning company would know whether it has, that would be treated as confidential," ITC MTB Program Manager Jennifer Rohrbach said during the walk-through session.
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The ITC plans to start posting filed petitions on the MTB website by mid- to late next week, after reviewing the first batch of received petitions, Rohrbach said. Withdrawn petitions will also be available for viewing after they get pulled out, she said. She advised that the MTB portal will time users out after one hour of inactivity. ITC E-Business Division Manager Joel Moeller said that performance testing has shown that hundreds of petitions can be filed at the same time. Furthermore, Moeller said multiple users can be logged into the same account simultaneously while filing a petition. As users approach the conclusion of filing, a “Summary” page will allow users to return to any section and change information, Rohrbach said. At the completion of filing, the portal will provide the stakeholder with a Petition ID Number. The MTB portal might experience occasional shutdowns for system maintenance during the 60 days it will accept filings, but the ITC doesn’t expect they will be regular, Rohrbach said.
To the extent that a product petitioned for a duty suspension or reduction is undergoing U.S. production, filers can respond “yes,” “no,” that production is expected within the next three years if domestic production is readily available, or that they don’t know, Rohrbach said. The first three types of responses must come with substantiating information. Providing downstream and upstream producer information will further help the ITC decide what products to recommend to Congress for preferential treatment, ITC Office of Tariff Affairs and Trade Agreements Director James Holbein said during the info session.
Filers must include the eight-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading, including periods, but can utilize ITC-provided links to fill in that info, Rohrbach said. If applying for duty benefits for a chemical, filers should list the chemical name and CAS number in the article description, she said. Holbein urged filers to be as specific as possible in describing any products falling in the “other” category, saying descriptions must be clear to be administrable by CBP. Filers should avoid using trademark names, brand names, proprietary names, part numbers and other company-specific information in describing products, Holbein said.
People seeking preferential duty treatment on more than one import must submit different petitions for each product, according to ITC’s request for petitions. But to the extent that one product could be associated with more than one HTS number, the filer should include all relevant numbers, Rohrbach said. To “amend” petitions, filers must delete the petition, then refile a new one, the ITC’s request says. Filers may withdraw petitions anytime before the ITC submits its final report to Congress. Rohrbach encouraged companies to file petitions quickly, so that ITC can address any system issues early in the process. The ITC no later than Jan. 11 will start accepting public comments in support of or in opposition to petitioned products, and is expected to submit recommendations to Congress for MTB duty benefits in June, said ITC Office of Industries MTB Coordinator Philip Stone.