The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 30 - Sept. 5:
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 U.S. Department of Agriculture revised the appendices to its Dairy Tariff-Rate Quota Import Licensing Regulation for the 2021 tariff-rate quota year, it said in a notice released Sept. 1. USDA is making the changes to reflect the cumulative annual transfers from Appendix 1 to Appendix 2 for certain dairy product import licenses permanently surrendered by licensees or revoked by the Foreign Agricultural Service.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service will charge $324 for the 2022 tariff-rate quota (TRQ) year for each license issued to a person or firm by the U.S. Department of Agriculture authorizing the importation of certain dairy articles that are subject to tariff-rate quotas set forth in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, it said in a notice released Sept. 1. The new fee is $34 higher than the $290 fee charged for 2021 TRQ year licenses, and $24 higher than the three years prior (see 2010020010).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 26 dismissed a steel importer's and purchaser's bid to reliquidate two entries subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, saying the plaintiffs had already received the relief available to them from the Commerce Department in the form of a product exclusion but failed to preserve their ability to receive a refund by way of an extension of liquidation or a protest.
Swiss computer peripheral and software company Logitech won its tariff classification challenge in the Court of International Trade, getting duty-free treatment for its webcams and ConferenceCams, per an Aug. 24 decision. Senior Judge Leo Gordon ruled that the webcams fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8517, as argued by Logitech, as opposed to heading 8525, dutiable at 2.1%, as suggested by the government. Finding that the products in dispute fall under both headings, Gordon said the duty-free heading describes the goods “with a greater degree of accuracy and certainty.”
The Agricultural Marketing Service is amending the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations to decrease the value assigned to imported cotton for the purposes of calculating supplemental assessments on imports collected under the Cotton Research and Promotion Program, it said in a direct final rule released Aug. 25. The revised value is 1.1136, a decrease of .0426 cent per kilogram. The decrease reflects a fall in the average price of upland cotton received by U.S. farmers during the period January through December 2020. AMS's notice also includes a table of adjusted assessments corresponding to each Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading for which they are due. The changes take effect Oct. 25, unless adverse comments are received by Sept. 27.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 16-22:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 9-15:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 2-8:
CBP is planning to extend the ongoing Section 321 data collection pilot for low-value shipments and expand it to more participants while the agency continues to work on a proposal to require new mandatory data elements (see 2101290033), said Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, who was speaking virtually during a CBP Detroit Trade Week event Aug. 3. "We think we need to expand that out, get more participation in it, get people used to the idea they have to collect this additional information, because the big effort that we're working on is regulations that will mandate that level of information," he said.