International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 10-14 in case they were missed.
Customs Duty
A Customs Duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs Duty Rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight.
CBP released the July 19 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 51, No. 29), which contains the following ruling actions (here):
An importer can't challenge the timeliness of a Commerce Department antidumping duty notice by way of a customs protest, CBP said in a recent ruling (here). Though L.F.I. Incorporated claimed its entry of preserved mushrooms should have been deemed liquidated because Commerce issued the amended final results of an administrative review too late, CBP held in HQ H268908 that it correctly liquidated the entry from the date of the amended final results because it was only following Commerce's directions.
The Court of International Trade on July 13 found an importer negligently misclassified entries of bags for storing cold beverages, despite having consulted its customs broker as to the correct classification (here). Farhan Khan did not exercise reasonable care because he should have consulted other sources after receiving three conflicting suggestions from his broker, and improperly relied on his broker's opinion to classify related but different beverage bags, CIT said.
Ohio's two senators are concerned that an existing CBP rule may interfere with attempts to halt customs duty evasion by foreign companies. Sens. Rob Portman, a Republican, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, told Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan that an agency interim final rule (from August 2016) to implement Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) provisions of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act will undermine CBP efforts to stop duty evasion, and recommended that the agency release a revised rule. Among the concerns detailed in a letter (here) to McAleenan were that the rule doesn’t establish an administrative protective order process for evasion cases, and that the rule limits authorized evasion proceedings to too narrow a group of stakeholders, or "parties to the investigation."
CBP published the quarterly Internal Revenue Service interest rates used to calculate interest on overdue accounts (underpayments) and refunds (overpayments) of customs duties (here). For the quarter that began July 1 and ends Sept. 30, the interest rates for overpayments will be 3 percent for corporations and 4 percent for non-corporations, and the rate for underpayments will be 4 percent for both corporations and non-corporations. These interest rates are subject to change for the calendar quarter beginning Oct. 1 and ending Dec. 31, CBP said.
The submission of documentation related to the importation of personal and household effects is customs business, and a company can’t submit the required form on behalf of its employees returning to the U.S., CBP said in a recent ruling (here). Reversing an earlier ruling letter it issued in April, CBP found that Form 3299, “Declaration for Free Entry of Unaccompanied Articles,” may only be completed by the employee, a customs broker or an individual serving as the employee’s authorized agent.
Aluminum dining chair kits imported by Woodard are covered by antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967/C-570-968), the Commerce Department said in a recent scope ruling. The chair kits do not qualify for the “finished goods kit” exemption from AD/CV duties because the non-extruded aluminum parts that are part of the kits when sold to the customer are not included at the time of importation. The chairs are also ineligible because they require further finishing, Commerce said.
The Timken Company filed a petition on June 27 with the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission, asking for new antidumping duties on tapered roller bearings from South Korea. Commerce will now decide whether to begin an AD duty investigation on tapered roller bearings from South Korea. Duties would come on top of an existing AD duty order on tapered roller bearings from China.
In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted (here):