Food that was denied entry but can be reconditioned to meet FDA requirements isn't prohibited merchandise, so it isn't eligible for a refund if it's exported or destroyed, CBP said in a recent ruling.
Drawback
A duty drawback is a refund by CBP of the duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods, which were imposed upon importation. More broadly, a drawback also includes the refund or remission of other excise taxes pursuant to other provisions of law. CBP's duty drawback scheme under the Customs Act of 1962 allows exporters to receive a refund on customs duties they paid on imported products that are then used or incorporated into other products for export or remain unused until importation.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 20 sustained the Commerce Department's use of surrogate financial statements from Emirates Sleep Systems Private Limited in the antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Vietnam, despite various objections from exporters led by Ashley Furniture Industries. Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce reasonably found the statements to be complete, publicly available and the best information available.
Importer Performance Additives told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the notion that Congress created a "two-track framework" for deemed liquidation of drawback claims where some claims aren't subject to deemed liquidation at all and others aren't subject to any time limit on liquidation is "nonsense." Filing a reply brief last week, the company said this interpretation of the statutory framework is "blatantly contrary to Congress' stated intent" (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated between Dec. 4 and Dec. 6 with the following headquarters ruling (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The U.S. opposed Canadian lumber exporters' bid to get the court to clarify its instruction to CBP to "discontinue ... the collection of" cash deposits made on entries brought in before a prior Court of International Trade decision, which said it wasn't equitable to subject the companies' exports to the countervailing duty order on Canadian softwood lumber (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, CIT # 19-00122).
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Foreign-trade zone goods become "importations" for duty drawback purposes when they are admitted into an FTZ, rather than when they are entered for consumption into the U.S., the government told the Court of International Trade on Nov. 27, urging it to dismiss a lawsuit from importer King Maker Marketing challenging the rejection of its duty drawback claims. As a result, King Maker's drawback claims are untimely, since they were brought over five years since the underlying cigarette entries were admitted into the FTZ, the government said (King Maker Marketing v. United States, CIT # 24-00134).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated between Nov. 20 and Nov. 22 with the following headquarters ruling (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Congressional intent is not "frustrated" when duty drawback claims on entries that aren't liquidated "and become final" within one year of the drawback claim being made aren't deemed liquidated, the U.S. said in a Nov. 22 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).
Individual importer Timothy Brown filed a complaint on Oct. 31 at the Court of International Trade seeking nearly $20,000 in duty drawback related to the shipment of a Porsch 911 Turbo S luxury vehicle. Brown said he in 2017 imported the vehicle, which was classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8703.24.0190, dutiable at 2.5% (Timothy Brown v. United States, CIT # 20-03733).