ITC Notes Mistakes in MTB Petitions' Article Descriptions, Issues Filing Guidance
Several petitions filed for temporary Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) duty suspensions and reductions contain incomplete article descriptions that may not be administrable by CBP, and the International Trade Commission (ITC) released guidance to help filers craft such descriptions, the commission said. The ITC opened MTB petition filings on Oct. 14, in line with the process outlined in the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016 enacted May 20. The guidance (here) says article descriptions should include clear and administrable language, applicable Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) subheading numbers, and any standard identification numbers or names, such as Chemical Abstracts Service number for chemicals. The guidance notes that product descriptions are different from article descriptions, which go into an HTS heading in Chapter 99. Product descriptions are narratives that inform about other details of the product.
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The ITC is advising filers against writing article descriptions that lay out an article’s purpose without physical descriptions, using ambiguous words and terms like “primarily” or “predominantly” not found in existing HTS provisions, and including descriptions for two or more distinct articles of commerce in one article description, which is intended to cover one HTS subheading. While the ITC might alert filers to article description deficiencies as time and resources allow, such time and resources might be less available as the Dec. 12 end-of-submission period approaches, the ITC said.