Penalties for new HTS rules to kick in Feb. 20

Penalties for new HTS rules to kick in Feb. 20 Importers will have a 17-day grace period to file entry documents with the international Harmonized Tariff Schedule changes for 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection clarified in a directive last Friday.
   The World Customs Organization amended a large portion of the global tariff rules last year for adoption by member nations.
   The new tariff codes will go into effect in the United States on Feb. 3, but importers will not be penalized for using 2006 product classification codes until Feb. 20.
   CBP's import processing system will reject entries filed with the old codes, but during the soft implementation period importers will have the opportunity to refile the documents once they update their trade databases with the new tariff codes.
   CBP is working around legal requirements in an effort to ease the transition for international traders because the government didn’t approve the final version of the HTS code changes until early January. The agency doesn't have the authority to extend the effective date, so it opted to delay enforcement. The grace period is roughly equal to the 45 days that trade associations said their members needed to update their databases after President Bush's January authorization of the changes.
   CBP emphasized that the grace period only applies to the classification changes and not other filing errors.
   Meanwhile, the International Trade Commission has published on its Web site an updated draft of the U.S. version of the classification changes out to 10-digits.