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The AAT has held that certain imported steel pallet racking met the description of goods the subject of a dumping duty notice and were therefore liable for dumping duties.
The taxpayer company imported into Australia steel pallet racking manufactured by Jiangu Jracking Industry Ltd from China (the subject goods). The subject goods were described by Jracking in importation documentation to include uprights, bracing, box section and connectors, the dimensions of which could not be adjusted as required. Jracking’s website stated that one of the features of the subject goods was easy beam adjustment that accommodated variable pallet heights, and that the subject goods were produced to the relevant Australian Standard AS 4084-2012 applicable to certain adjustable static pallet racking.
The taxpayer was assessed and paid dumping duty on 4 shipments of the subject goods into Australia under the Customs Tariff (Anti-Dumping) Act 1975. The duty was imposed because of a dumping duty notice published on 6 May 2019 in relation to certain steel pallet racking exported to Australia from China and Malaysia pursuant to s 269TG of the Customs Act 1901. The goods under consideration were described in the dumping duty notice as “Steel Pallet racking, or parts thereof, assembled or unassembled, of dimensions that can be adjusted as required”. The taxpayer sought review by the AAT after the Comptroller-General of Customs affirmed its decision to refuse the taxpayer’s refund requests following an internal review.
At issue was whether the subject goods came within the scope of the dumping duty notice.
The taxpayer argued that the subject goods as imported did not meet the description of the goods in the dumping duty notice as they were not adjustable. It submitted that altering the height of beams within a pallet racking system did not adjust the dimensions (width, height and depth) of that system, which remained unchanged. The selection of components of different dimensions in the design, manufacture, assembly and/or installation of a pallet racking system was a process of manufacture and not an “adjustment” of an existing pallet racking system.
The AAT affirmed the decision under review, finding that the subject goods were clearly “of dimensions that [could] be adjusted as required”. That phrase, construed in context and having regard to the purpose of the dumping duty notice, clearly required the pallet racking to have some adjustable dimensions. If some dimensional adjustments could be made, including just of storage height levels, it was sufficient for the subject goods to come within the scope of the dumping duty notice.
Source: One Stop Pallet Racking Pty Ltd v Comptroller-General of Customs 2022 ATC ¶10-644; [2022] AATA 2881, 7 September 2022.
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