The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is amending the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations, effective July 15, 2016, to remove the $2.00 per tariff line cotton import de minimis provision applicable to imports of cotton and cotton-containing products.
Importer’s cotton assessment fee (cotton fee) is payable to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at time of entry summary, but importers had been exempt from paying the cotton fee if a line item on CBP entry resulted in a fee of $2.00 or less.
The exemption was initially established to lessen the administrative burden of collecting the cotton fee where the transactions costs of the collection would have exceeded the actual value of the assessment. Technological advances have significantly reduced the transactions costs associated with collecting cotton fee, and CBP has stopped charging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the processing and collecting of assessments. As a result AMS is removing this de minimis provision from the regulations.
The Import Assessment Table identifies the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classification numbers subject to this assessment, the corresponding conversion factor and the assessment rate for that HTS (based on the net reporting weight in kilograms).
Revenue generated by these assessments is used to finance research and promotion programs designed to increase consumer demand for upland cotton in the U.S. and international markets.
If you have any questions regarding the elimination of the cotton fee de minimis provision, Livingston can help! Please contact either your Livingston account manager or our regulatory affairs department at usregaffairs@livingstonintl.com.