This is a reminder that the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule will be amended for hundreds of World Customs Organization-recommended tariff changes on or about February 3, 2012. At that time, ITC will implement the "official" HTS in its entirety, with the WCO-recommended and other changes. In addition, the printed official 2012 HTS will be available from the Government Printing Office. In the meantime, the ITC has made an unofficial version of the February 3 HTS available on its Web site "early," for HTS Chapters 1-97.
Harmonized Tariff Schedule
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) is a reference manual that provides duty rates for almost every item that exists. It is a system of classifying and taxing all goods imported into the United States. The HTS is based on the international Harmonized System, which is a global standard for naming and describing trade products, and consists of a hierarchical structure that assigns a specific code and rate to each type of merchandise for duty, quota, and statistical purposes. The HTS was made effective on January 1, 1989, replacing the former Tariff Schedules of the United States. It is maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission, but the Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the HTS.
The International Trade Administration has issued Federal Register notices on its recently initiated antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on utility scale wind towers from China and Vietnam (A-570-981, A-552-814), and C-570-982). The ITA will determine whether imports of utility scale wind towers from China and Vietnam are being, or are likely to be, sold in the U.S. at less than fair value, and whether manufacturers, producers, or exporters of utility scale wind towers in China receive countervailable subsidies.
According to officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CBP expects the first filing of a live Simplified Entry by pilot trade participants to occur in March 2012. Testing with the trade is now expected to begin in late January or early February 2012, due to delays caused by M1’s pushed-back deployment schedule.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection for Field Operations in New York has issued an Informational Pipeline stating that, effective December 16, 2011, the JFK Entry Branch is responsible for processing all Refusal Notices issued by the Food and Drug Administration on entry summaries where the Harmonized Tariff Schedule number of the merchandise in question falls under the jurisdiction of a JFK Commodity Specialist Team (CST).
The Census Bureau recently posted its list of Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers that are invalid for use in the Automated Export System as of January 1, 2012. Schedule B numbers must be used for these invalid HTS numbers instead.
The International Trade Administration has been periodically updating the tariff numbers listed in the scope section of its reviews of the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890). The changes1 have been made to reflect updates to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and as ITA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection find necessary, in their attempt to list all possible tariff numbers under which the order's articles may be imported.
Vietnam Customs has issued a circular announcing the 2012 tariff schedule, which it states has many changes due to harmonization with the World Customs Organization and ASEAN countries. The changes affect item codes, item names, the number of tariff lines, tariff rates, tariff schedule structure, and Most Favored Nation (MFN) import tariffs. These changes came into effect on January 1, 2012.
The International Trade Administration has issued a message to CBP on its August 2, 2011 broadened scope interpretation for the antidumping duty order on petroleum wax candles from China (A-570-504). While the August 2 notice stated that only 3 candle types were excluded from the AD order, it did not describe the exclusions. ITA has now described them; in addition, it is directing CBP to retroactively suspend liquidation and collect AD duty cash deposits for all conflicting candles.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an updated list of 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers for articles that may be subject to the Softwood Lumber Act of 2008 (SLA 2008). However, the written product definitions in SLA 2008 determine the scope of articles subject to CBP requirements, not the listed tariff numbers. If an article is not classified in one of the listed tariff numbers but is described in SLA 2008, the article is subject to CBP requirements.
Proclamation 8771 to amend the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule for the World Customs Organization-recommended tariff changes will take effect on February 3, 2012, thirty days after its January 4, 2012 publication in the Federal Register. In the meantime, the ITC has made an unofficial February 3 version of the 2012 online HTS (which includes the WCO-recommended and other changes) available "early," for HTS chapters 1-97. This unofficial version is available here. The ITC states that the official, complete HTS with the WCO-recommended and other changes, etc., will be posted on or about February 3 and the printed 2012 HTS will be available from the Government Printing Office.