CLA-2 RR:CR:TE 964239 jsj
Mr. Paul McKay
Contact International, Inc
815 N.E. Davis Street
Portland, Oregon
97232
Re: Request for Reconsideration of NY E87129; Laminated Wood Flooring Panels; Subheadings 4412.13.5070, 4412.14.3070, 4418.30.000 and 4409.20.25; General Rule of Interpretation 1; Clarification of HQ 960361.
Dear Mr. McKay:
The purpose of this correspondence is to respond to your request of April 28, 2000, directed to the New York office of the U.S. Customs Service. The correspondence in issue requested reconsideration of New York Ruling Letter E87129 issued to Contact International on October 12, 1999. The Customs Service, based on your correspondence, will only reconsider that aspect of NY E87129 which addressed laminated wood flooring panels.
This reconsideration is being issued subsequent to a review of your appeal submission of April 28, 2000.
FACTS
The articles in issue have been identified as “laminated wood flooring panels” that are to be imported from Brazil. The panels will be imported in two dimensions: (1) Four (4) feet in length, three (3) inches in width and five-sixteenth (5/16) of an inch thick; and (2) Five (5) feet in length, six (6) inches in width and five-sixteenth (5/16) of an inch thick.
The sample provided the New York Customs Office was a panel composed of five wood veneer plies laminated together in a “cross-grain construction.” Cross-grain construction involves the wood grains of the successive plies run at angles to one another. The face veneer had a clear acrylic finish or coating that did not obscure the natural appearance of the wood. The sample was tongued and grooved along its edges and ends.
The face veneer of the panels to be imported may be composed of any one of the following species: (1) Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry): Hymenacea stilbocarpa Hayne: (2) Ipe-Goiabao (Brazilian Walnut): Planchonella pachycarpa, Sapotacea; (3) Tauari-Curupixa (Brazilian Chestnut): Couratari cf. Oblongifolia Duke-Couratari sp. Lecythidacea; (4) White Oak: Quercus elba; (5) Red Oak: Quercus sp., Fogacea; (6) Maple: Acer saccharinum; or (7) Timborana: Cordia goeldiana Huber.
The core and back or base plies may be composed of the following species: (1) Copaiba: Copaifera sp., Leguminosae; (2) Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry): Hymenacea stilbocarpa Hayne; or (3) Muiracatiara: Astronium lecointei Duke, Anacardeacea.
ISSUES
What is the classification, pursuant to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, of the laminated wood flooring panels ?
LAW AND ANALYSIS
The Customs Service on October 12, 1999 issued New York Ruling Letter E87129 to Contact International, Inc. New York Ruling Letter E87129 classified the laminated wood flooring panels in issue in subheadings 4412.13.5070 and 4412.14.3070 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS). It is the position of Contact International that the laminated wood flooring panels are properly classified in subheading 4418.30 HTSUS or, in the alternative, subheading 4409.10.20 HTSUS.
The principal HTSUS subheadings considered by the Customs Service in rendering this reconsideration were: (1) 4412.13.5070; (2) 4412.14.3070; (3) 4418.30.000 and (4) 4409.20.25. Subheading 4412.13.5070 provides:
Plywood, veneered panels and similar laminated wood:
Plywood consisting solely of sheets of wood, each ply not exceeding 6mm in thickness:
With at least one outer ply of tropical wood specified in subheading note 1 to this chapter:
Not surface covered, or surface covered with a clear or transparent material which does not obscure the grain, texture or markings of the face ply:
Other:
Other:
Other.
Subheading 4412.14.3070 provides:
4412 Plywood, veneered panels and similar laminated wood:
Plywood consisting solely of sheets of wood, each ply not exceeding 6mm in thickness:
Other, with at least one outer ply of nonconiferous wood:
Not surface covered, or surface covered with a clear or transparent material which does not obscure the grain, texture or markings of the face ply:
Other:
Other.
Subheading 4418.30.0000 provides:
Builders’ joinery and carpentry of wood, including cellular wood panels and assembled parquet panels; shingles and shakes:
4418.30.0000 Parquet panels.
Subheading 4409.20.25 provides:
Wood (including strips and friezes for parquet flooring, not assembled) continuously shaped (tongued, grooved, rebated, chamfered, V-jointed, beaded, molded, rounded or the like) along any of its edges or faces, whether or not planed, sanded or finger-jointed:
Nonconiferous:
Wood flooring.
The classification of imported merchandise pursuant to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States is governed by the General Rules of Interpretation. GRI 1 provides that classification decisions are to be “determined according to the terms of the headings and any relative section or chapter notes.”
Heading 4412 provides for the classification of “[p]lywood, veneered panels and similar laminated wood.” The Explanatory Notes to heading 4412 indicate that the heading covers “[p]lywood consisting of three or more sheets of wood glued and pressed one on the other and generally disposed so that the grains of successive layers are at an angle.”
The Explanatory Notes (EN) of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System represent the official interpretation of the HTSUS at the international level. The EN’s are not law in the United States and the Customs Service is not, therefore, legally obligated to follow them, but their interpretative value is acknowledged. See T.D. 89-90, 54 Fed. Reg. 35127-28 (Aug. 23, 1989).
The merchandise in issue, “laminated wood flooring panels,” is manufactured by gluing together five wood veneer plies. The species of wood to be used are those identified by Contact International. The veneers are laminated together with the grain of successive layers at angles to one another. The edges and ends of the panels to be imported are tongued and grooved.
Chapter 44, Note 4 provides that “[p]roducts of heading …4412 may be worked to form the shapes provided for in respect of the articles of heading 4409, curved, corrugated, perforated, cut or formed to shapes other than square or rectangular or submitted to any other operation provided it does not give them the character of articles of other headings.” Chapter 44, Note 4, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. The Explanatory Notes to heading 4412 essentially reiterate Note 4 of Chapter 44. See Explanatory Note 44.12. The Chapter Note to Chapter 44 and EN 44.12 provide authority for the conclusion of the Customs Service that tonguing and grooving the ends and edges of the panels does not preclude classification in heading 4412.
A further review of the Explanatory Notes to heading 4412 and an examination of the EN’s to heading 4409 confirm the classification of the laminated wood flooring panels in heading 4412. The EN’s to heading 4412 state that the heading also covers “plywood panels or veneered panels, used as flooring panels, and sometimes referred to as ‘parquet flooring’.” Explanatory Note 44.12. The Explanatory Notes to heading 4409 state that “[s]trips of plywood or veneered wood for parquet flooring are excluded” from heading 4409 and classified in heading 4412. Explanatory Note 44.09.
It is the conclusion of this office that the National Commodity Specialists Division of the Customs Service correctly classified the laminated wood flooring panels. The instant merchandise consists solely of sheets of wood with each ply being less than six millimeters thick. The wood plies of which the panels are composed are glued together with the grains of successive layers at angles to one another. The panels are surface covered, but the clear acrylic finish does not obscure the grain, texture or markings of the veneer.
The plywood flooring panels with at least one outer ply of a tropical wood are properly classified in subheading 4412.13.5070, HTSUS and the plywood flooring panels that have no outer plies of a tropical wood are properly classified in subheading 4412.14.3070, HTSUS.
Contact International initially suggests that the proper classification of the laminated wood flooring panels is subheading 4418.30. Subheading 4418.30 provides for builder’s carpentry and joinery of wood, including “assembled parquet panels.” Heading 4418, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. A review of the Explanatory Notes to heading 4418 indicates that this heading covers “parquet strips…assembled into panels or tiles, with or without borders, including parquet panels or tiles consisting of parquet strips assembled on a support of one or more layers of wood.” Explanatory Note 44.18.
The laminated wood flooring panels for which this reconsideration has been sought are not parquet strips assembled into panels. The instant merchandise is plywood panels to be used as flooring. The parquet panels of heading 4418 consist of solid wood strips assembled into panels.
Although not directly affecting the merchandise being imported by Contact International, the Customs Service would like to bring to your attention a “Notice of Proposed Revocation and Modification of Ruling Letters and Revocation of Tariff Treatment Relating to the Tariff Classification of Laminated Flooring.” This Notice is scheduled to be published in the Customs Bulletin in the immediate future. It addresses a proposed change in the classification of certain wood flooring products based on clarifying amendments to the Explanatory Notes of headings 4412 and 4418.
The Customs Service, in prior ruling letters, has classified laminated wood flooring panels in heading 4418 when the flooring panel had a face of multiple veneer strips of wood. See HQ 962031; See also HQ 960361 (providing analysis addressing the distinction between panels with a face veneer of multiple versus single strips of wood). The Customs Service previously classified this merchandise relying in part on a classification decision of the Customs Co-operation Council (CCC). The CCC decision referenced by Customs provided that merchandise properly classified in subheading 4418.30 should consist of mosaic panels of wooden strips with the top layer displaying more than one strip of wood. See Customs Co-operation Council Classification Opinion Document 34.153, dated July 29, 1987 (hereinafter Opinion).
The Harmonized System Committee of the World Customs Organization, the parent body of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, subsequent to the issuance of the Opinion of the CCC, amended the Explanatory Notes to headings 4412 and 4418. See Annex IJ/14 to Doc. 41.600E (HSC/20/Nov. 97). The amendments became effective in November of 1997. The amendment to EN 44.12 provides:
The heading [4412] also covers plywood panels or veneered panels, used as flooring panels, and sometimes referred to as “parquet panels”. These panels have a thin veneer of wood affixed to the surface, so as to simulate a flooring panel made up of parquet strips.
The amendment to EN 44.18, adding a new exclusionary paragraph, reads as follows:
This heading does not cover:
Plywood panels or veneered panels, used as flooring panels, which have a thin veneer of wood affixed to the surface, so as to simulate a flooring panel made up of parquet strips (heading 44.12).
The Customs Service, on consideration of headings 4412 and 4418 and in light of the clarifying amendments to the Explanatory Notes, now concludes that laminated wood flooring panels, whether of multiple veneer strips or a single veneer strip, are properly classified in heading 4412, HTSUS.
Headquarters Ruling Letter 960361, which correctly classified wood flooring panels with a single veneer face in heading 4412, requires clarification. The reasoning underlying HQ 960361, subsequent to consideration of headings 4412 and 4418 and in light of the clarifying amendments to Explanatory Notes 44.12 and 44.18, will no longer be followed. It is the conclusion of the Customs Service that laminated wood flooring panels are properly classified in subheading 4412 without regard to whether the face veneer is composed of a single strip of wood or multiple strips that create a mosaic pattern.
Contact International suggests in the alternative that the laminated wood flooring panels in issue should be classified in subheading 4409.20.25, HTSUS. Heading 4409 addresses articles of wood that are continuously shaped. The Explanatory Notes to heading 4409 indicate that the articles of wood covered by this heading are “timber, particularly in the form of boards, planks, etc. which, after sawing or squaring, have been continuously shaped along any of its edges or faces.” (Emphasis added.) Explanatory Note 44.09.
Timber, as used in EN 44.09, is synonymous with lumber. Lumber is defined as “the product of the saw and planing mill not further manufactured than by sawing, resawing, passing lengthwise through a standard planing machine, crosscutting to length, and matching.” U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, The Wood Handbook 23-6 (1974); See also Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, The Riverside Publishing Company 1210 (1984).
The laminated wood flooring panels for which Contact International sought this reconsideration have been manufactured beyond sawing, resawing or being passed lengthwise through a planing machine. The flooring panels are composed of five plies of wood veneer which have been laminated together.
Referencing GRI 1, which mandates that the classification of merchandise begin with a determination of the appropriate heading prior to proceeding to a review of the subheadings, the flooring panels in issue are not classifiable in heading 4409. The flooring panels are composed of five plies of laminated wood that have been manufactured beyond sawing, resawing or being passed through a planing machine. They are not, for that reason, the merchandise described in heading 4409, precluding consideration of the subheading level of heading 4409. See HQ 951832. Merchandise that would properly be classified in subheading 4409.20.25 as “wood flooring” would encompass continuously shaped, one piece or finger-jointed boards or planks.
HOLDING
New York Ruling Letter E87129 has been reconsidered and it is the conclusion of the Customs Service that the merchandise was correctly classified.
The laminated wood flooring panels with an outer ply of a tropical wood are classified in subheading 4412.13.5070, HTSUS. The general column one duty rate is eight (8) percent, ad valorem.
The laminated wood flooring panels that do not have an outer ply of a tropical wood are classified in subheading 4412.14.3070, HTSUS. The general column one duty rate is eight (8) percent, ad valorem.
Sincerely,
John Durant, Director
Commercial Rulings Division