As a national entity charged with the accurate importation and exportation of commodities, how is it possible to address changes in the descriptions and product details required to certify such commodities with harmonized codes for international trade? International agencies responsible for verifying and interpreting harmonized codes must keep up to date on in-country changes, as new products must be described before export can be executed. Likewise, as new products enter the country, new HS (Harmonized System) codes are required for lookup and validation.
Implicit in the agency’s mandate is the accuracy of these descriptions so that appropriate tariffs can be assigned. Commodities that lack the correct harmonized tariff code may receive an incorrect tariff, an error that could stifle exports of certain goods and cause certain segments of manufacturing to suffer. In terms of imports, commodities that are mislabeled with an HS code may adversely affect the total duties collected. Again, errors in assigning harmonized codes can benefit foreign imports while adversely effecting native manufacturing.
Agencies often neglect the level of effort required to decipher and assign HS codes, opting to perform the work the manual way instead of searching for alternatives. A common misconception is that automated systems do not exist to help in the research and classification of harmonized codes.
Reverse harmonized code engines do exist to greatly simplify the research and assignment of HS codes for commodities. Working from the description first, these query and analysis tools makes it easy; the engine simply requests that the researcher enter keywords from the product description and then returns the correct HS classification for export or import items.
Further simplifying HS code management is the regular updates such software applications receive from the WCO (World Customs Organization). Eliminating the management of an HS code library, foreign and domestic codes are kept up to date while improving the accuracy of all descriptions for commodities.