President Bush Issues Proclamation Authorizing Changes to U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule
On January 1, 2007, customs tariff schedules around the world will undergo significant changes as a result of modifications made to the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (the "Harmonized System"). While most countries finalized their new tariff schedules prior to the January 1, 2007 deadline, the U.S. has not yet issued the final version of its 2007 tariff schedule. As a result, implementation of the 2007 version of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) will be delayed until February 2007.
On December 29, 2006, President Bush issued a Proclamation authorizing the modification of the HTSUS to conform to the numerous changes made to Harmonized System. The Proclamation states that the modifications to the HTSUS will apply to "goods entered, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after the later of (i) February 1, 2007, or (ii) the thirtieth day after the date of publication of this proclamation in the Federal Register." Thus, assuming that there is not an unusual delay in publishing the Proclamation in the Federal Register, the new HTSUS will take effect in early February 2007.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will soon issue the final version of the HTSUS, incorporating the changes to the Harmonized System as well as a number of other changes, including revisions to certain duty rates as a result of the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 (HR 6111). The ITC has already published a preliminary version of the 2007 HTSUS, which includes scheduled duty rate changes made by several free trade agreements and changes in reporting at the statistical (10-digit) level.
In the meantime, U.S. importers should review the draft version of the 2007 HTSUS published by the ITC in Publication 3851 to see how particular HTSUS subheadings will be affected in 2007 (note that this document only shows the HTS subheadings at the 8-digit level).
Many countries have already issued their 2007 tariff schedules, which will go into effect today. For example, the 2007 tariff schedules of the 27 countries in the European Union was published in the Official Journal of the European Union's website in October (note that Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU today). Canada's 2007 tariff schedule can be found on the Canada Border Service Agency's website.
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
