Tariff classification rulings

The Court of International Trade's "unique and unprecedented interpretation" of an "other" provision in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule comes from a "false premise" that would greatly expand its scope throughout the HTS, importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods argued in its Sept. 27 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Seeking its preferred classification of frozen fruit mixtures, the importer said the trade court's reading would also "greatly limit operation of the provisions in [General Rules of Interpretation] 3(b) and (c) which are designed to classify mixtures" (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2093).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 25 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):

Parts of two refinery units cannot all be classified under a tariff schedule provision for "distilling or rectifying plant," because not every subunit contributes to the "clearly defined function of distillation," CBP said in a recently released ruling. The ruling was issued in response to a request for a binding classification ruling by Marathon Petroleum Company.

Importer Shamrock Building Materials laid out a "myriad of unsupported and unpersuasive arguments" against the Court of International Trade's finding that electrical conduit is properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 22 reply brief. The government said the heading, which provides for "other tubes, pipes and hollow profiles" of iron or steel, exactly describes the electrical conduit, and that heading 8547, which covers "electric conduit tubing lined with insulating material," does not fit the bill (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1648).

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 Sept. 21 ruled in a customs classification case involving eight different categories of decorative plant parts, siding with importer Second Nature Designs on its preferred classification of two of the categories and with the government on one of the categories. Pertaining to three other categories, Judge Gary Katzmann said that there were fact questions remaining, leading the judge to deny summary judgment and advance litigation to its "second phase."

In the Sept. 13 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 57, No. 33), CBP published a proposal to revoke ruling letters concerning processed brewer's saved grains and a wooden box from China.

The classification of gun sight inserts that use tritium for powerless illumination in low light conditions are properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9022 under the first General Rule of Interpretation (GRI), importer Trijicon argued in a Sept. 15 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade (Trijicon v. United States, CIT # 22-00040).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: