Reconciling Commercial Moisture Allowance Discrepancies during Customs Tariff Audits
Reconciling customs moisture discrepancies requires converting physical import weights to oven-dry mass and reapplying statutory regulatory regain schedules.
19 CFR 151.61
Regulatory Standard
Legal provisions in the United States Code of Federal Regulations dictate the methods used for sampling and testing imported wool or hair. Under 19 cfr 151.61, customs officers supervise the drawing of representative samples from every lot to determine the clean yield. This process ensures that duties are calculated based on the actual fiber weight rather than grease or dirt content.
Operational Instruction
Port officials determine the number of packages to be sampled based on the size of the shipment and the uniformity of the fiber. When a shipment arrives at the port, 19 cfr 151.61 requires that at least 10 percent of the packages be opened for sampling unless the port director specifies a different amount. Because fiber characteristics vary significantly between different shearing regions, the sampling must be thorough enough to capture the median quality of the entire batch.
Technical Requirement
Core boring remains the primary method used to extract fiber from densely packed bales for analysis. If the importer disagrees with the initial findings obtained through 19 cfr 151.61, they may request a retest or a full commercial scour of the lot. This second analysis provides a way to verify the initial laboratory results against a larger volume of material.
Fiscal Consequence
Accurate clean yield data prevents the overpayment or underpayment of tariffs on raw animal fibers. The application of 19 cfr 151.61 settles the final duty liability for the importer of record.