Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) has further confirmed that the Senate will not pass a complete (meaning extensions of expiring provisions and new duty suspensions) miscellaneous tariff bill before adjourning for the holiday recess.
In conversations with Senate Finance Committee staff, OIA said it has learned that the MTB that will be passed by the Senate this year will only include extensions of MTBs that are set to expire and may not include all extension bills that were introduced. In addition, any legislation introduced for consideration for this year’s MTB that proposed NEW duty suspensions will not be passed this year.
OIA said it requested the introduction of several MTBs in the Senate, including eight bills that extend duty suspensions or reductions on certain kinds of outdoor performance footwear. Those eight bills WILL be included in the package that passes this year, but will not be modified to $23 FOB value and above (as OIA proposed and as introduced) and will instead pass as drafted in 2006 at $20 FOB and above. This means that some footwear products that have been duty free since 2007, may be assessed some level of duty, but not the 37.5% they are usually assessed. We do not yet know to which specific products this scenario applies.
OIA said the Senate is expected to conduct an additional MTB early next year for new duty suspensions, modified MTB extension bills and other duty suspension extension bills not covered this year. The House MTB is expected to be introduced next week, but whether there is time to pass that bill prior to House adjournment is unclear.
