International Trade Commission officials have issued three corrections to its recently released list of Harmonized Tariff Schedule statistical changes (at the 9th and 10th digit level) approved by the 484(f) Committee, that take effect on January 1, 2012. The corrections affect light amber honey and certain AC generators (alternators). As of January 3, the ITC's preliminary 2012 HTS only reflects correct information for the AC generators.
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.
On December 29, 2011, the President issued a Proclamation to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to remove certain “non-down” sleeping bags from the Generalized System of Preferences program, make certain conforming changes that were inadvertently omitted from Proclamation 8742 on textile-bottomed footwear, and extend certain Israel agriculture tariff rate quotas through 2012. Details of these changes, contained in the Proclamation’s Annexes, are not expected to be available until the proclamation is published in the Federal Register.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting comments by January 30, 2012 on its Simplified Entry information collection (which is part of its information collection request for CBP Forms 3461 and 3461 ALT). CBP is proposing to extend the expiration date of this information collection with a change to the burden hours as a result of the proposed addition of the Simplified Entry Program.
On December 29, 2011, President Obama signed a Proclamation to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for the World Customs Organization-recommended tariff changes that are taking effect internationally on or about January 1, 2012. As this Proclamation was signed "late", and takes effect 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register, the earliest it could take effect for imports into the U.S. is February 1, 2012 (if it were published as early as January 3, 2012).
Census has issued an AES broadcast announcing that, effective immediately, the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) tables in the Automated Export System have been updated to reflect changes for textile-bottomed footwear (in chapter 64) made by Presidential Proclamation 8742.
The International Trade Commission has released a list of the statistical changes to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule approved by the Committee for Statistical Annotation of Tariff Schedules (484(f) Committee) to take effect on January 1, 2012. These changes are included in the ITC's preliminary version of the 2012 HTS, which has been updated to correct certain omissions.
The International Trade Commission has posted an updated preliminary version of the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule to its website, which is effective on January 1, 2012. ITC states that this preliminary version will not be sent to the Government Printing Office for printing and distribution. The prior preliminary version had contained at least one error.
The International Trade Commission states it has posted a preliminary version of the 2012 Harmonized Tariff Schedule to its website, which will not be sent to the Government Printing Office for distribution. While this preliminary version is not intended to contain the numerous WCO-recommended tariff changes, it should contain the 484(f) Committee changes approved to take effect on January 1, 2012, as well as other non-WCO related changes (the WCO-recommended changes are waiting on a Presidential Proclamation which is expected to be signed in late 2011).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing the issuance of Harmonized System Update 1108. This update contains 577 Automated Broker Interface (ABI) records and 118 harmonized tariff records.
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative has stated that it was holding working-level meetings with Korea on December 19-20, 2011 to continue discussions related to the implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), including a review of each other’s respective laws and regulations related to implementation.