Importer Amoena USA Corp. filed a complaint on May 31 at the Court of International Trade contesting CBP's classification of its mastectomy brassieres under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6212.10.90.20, as "other brassieres of manmade fiber," dutiable at 16.9% (Amoena USA Corp. v. United States, CIT # 20-00101).
Harmonized Tariff Schedule
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) provide classification provisions and 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 CBP is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the HTS.
The Court of International Trade was wrong to rule that imported calendar planners should be classified by CBP as diaries instead of calendars, the importer said in its opening brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 24 (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 22 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade on May 20 entered stipulated judgment in a pair of customs suits brought by Home Depot U.S.A., lowering the duty rate on the retail giant's imported residential door knobs packaged with at least one deadbolt, from 5.7% to 3.9% (Home Depot U.S.A. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 14-00122, -00123).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a May 1 decision made public May 9 upheld the Commerce Department's decision to use adverse facts available against mandatory respondent Risen Energy Co., though it remanded the methodology used to come up with the AFA rate. Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce failed to pick from facts available and "instead created facts by manipulating evidence on the record."
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 1-2 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Importer Nutricia North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that classifying its substances used to "treat life-threatening diseases in young children" as food preparations "not elsewhere specified" as opposed to "medicaments" or items "for the use or benefit" of handicapped people would lead to the "parents of very ill children" paying higher prices for these substances. In its opening brief on April 30, Nutricia said that this isn't the result Congress intended and that the Harmonized Tariff Schedule "can and should be interpreted to avoid that result" (Nutricia North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1436).