F. W. Myers & Co. v. United States

60 Cust. Ct. 716, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2671
CourtUnited States Customs Court
DecidedJanuary 8, 1968
DocketR.D. 11454; Entry No. 42009
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 60 Cust. Ct. 716 (F. W. Myers & Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Customs Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
F. W. Myers & Co. v. United States, 60 Cust. Ct. 716, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2671 (cusc 1968).

Opinion

LaNdis, Judge:

This is another reappraisement case in what appears to be a growing dispute as to the valuation of merchandise under the new valuation law, section 402 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as [717]*717amended by the Customs Simplification Act of 1956, T.D. 54165, 19 U.S.C., section 1401a, in export transactions with, overtones of parent-subsidiary company relationships.

The merchandise of this appeal for reappraisement is 18-gauge, flash-in grade, steel tubing in two sizes, one measuring 1% inches, the other 2 inches in diameter, manufactured by International Formed Tubes, Ltd. (hereinafter International Tubes), Scarboro, Ontario, Canada, and sold to International Stamping Co., Inc. (hereinafter International Stamping), Hartford, Wisconsin. Both companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Midas International Corporation, Chicago (hereinafter Midas Corp.).

Fourteen shipments, exported from Canada between April 30,1964, and February 11, 1965, are covered by this appeal, each entered at Detroit, Michigan, by F. W. Myers & Co., Inc., customhouse broker and nominal plaintiff herein. The appraiser at Detroit valued the steel tubes on basis of export value, section 402(b), as amended, T.D. 54165,19 U.S.C., section 1401a; the 1% inch at $11.22 per 100 feet; the 2 inch at $13.38 per 100 feet, Canadian currency.

Plaintiff’s rule 15 statement claims that the steel tubes should be reappraised on basis of amended section 402(b) export value or amended section 402(d) constructed value, on either basis, at the invoice and entered values, namely, $8.06 per 100 feet for the 1% inch and $8.49 per 100 feet for the 2-inch size tubes, United States dollars. In its brief, filed with the court, plaintiff has abandoned the claim for reappraisement under section 402(d), constructed value. That claim is, therefore, dismissed and I find and hold that export value, under section 402(b), as amended, is the proper basis for appraisement of these tubes.

There is considerable testimony and documentary evidence in the record on the cost of producing the steel tubes. Defendant concedes that plantiff’s claimed export values are enough to cover the manufacturer’s cost of producing the steel tubes and make a profit. (Defendant’s brief, page 18.) The value basis proper for these tubes, as I have already found, is export value. Absent any question that the allocation of fixed costs of production to sales in Canada and export sales to the United States affected the price for export as in John V. Carr & Son, Inc. v. United States, 52 CCPA 62, C.A.D. 860, I shall review only that much of the record as is probative of the amount of export value proper for the steel tube sizes in question.

Export value and the terms therein are, in pertinent part, defined in section 402, as amended, as follows:

(b) Expokt Value. — For the purposes of this section, the export value of imported merchandise shall be the price, at the time of exportation to the United States of the merchandise undergoing appraise[718]*718ment, at which, such or similar merchandise is freely sold or, in the absence of sales, offered for sale in the principal markets of the country of exportation, in the usual wholesale quantities and in the ordinary course of trade, for exportation to the United States, plus, when not included in such price, the cost of all containers and coverings of whatever nature and all other expenses incidental to placing the merchandise in condition, packed ready for shipment to the United States.
# :J: ifc ij; # #
(f) DEFINITIONS. — For the purposes of this section—
(1) The term “freely sold or, in the absence of sales, offered for sale” means sold or, in the absence of sales offered—
(A) to all purchasers at wholesale or
(B) in the ordinary course of trade to one or more selected purchasers at wholesale at a price which fairly reflects the market value of the merchandise,
without restrictions as to the disposition or use of the merchandise by the purchaser, except restrictions as to such disposition or use which (i) are imposed or required by law, (ii) limit the price at which or the territory in which the merchandise may be resold, and (iii) do not substantially affect the value of the merchandise to usual purchasers at wholesale.

On trial, plaintiff called Mr. Henry F. Petton, the customs examiner of the steel tubes at Detroit, Mr. Jacobus D. Wesseling, controller of International Tubes, the manufacturer and seller of the imported merchandise, and Mr. Bobert T. Schroeder, vice president of Midas Corp. The following facts come through in their testimony:

The appraised values, as advisorily fixed by Mr. Petton and approved by the appraiser, are the prices for home consumption and export to the United States of similar merchandise recited in the pricelists of Standard Tube and T.I., Ltd., another Canadian manufacturer of steel tubes.

International Tubes, the wholly owned subsidiary of Midas Corp., manufactures steel tubes exclusively for use in fabricating automotive exhaust and tailpipes. It does not sell or offer to sell steel tubes for home consumption in Canada but fabricates about 50 percent of the tubes it produces into exhaust and tailpipes. The remaining 50 percent, it sells for export to the United States solely to International Stamping and Muffler Corporation of America, Chicago, Illinois (hereinafter Muffler Corp.), the latter also a wholly owned subsidiary of Midas Corp. International Stamping and Muffler Corp., in turn, fabricate the steel tubes into exhaust and tailpipes.

Mr. Wesseling for International Tubes, Mr. Schroeder for Midas Corp., and a Mr. Lawrence Zalusky (controller of Midas Corp.) conferred and negotiated in September 1963 on the selling price of these steel tubes as and between International Tubes, International [719]*719Stamping, and Muffler Corp. They kept in mind the Midas Corp. “point of view” that the plants should operate on a profitable basis; that the export price should be competitive with the prices of tubes produced in the United States and that International Tubes needed the business. A pricelist (exhibit 1) was drawn up, effective October 1,

1963, reciting unit prices (the same as the invoice unit prices here) which included the cost of all containers and coverings of whatever nature and all expenses incidental to placing the steel tubes of the sizes here in condition packed ready for shipment to the United States, f.o.b. Scarboro, Ontario. Between January 1, 1964, and February 10, 1965, International 'Stamping and Muffler Corp. bought substantial quantities of steel tubes (exhibits 2 and 3) for further processing into exhaust and tailpipes.

Five or six Canadian firms manufacture steel tubes in competition with International Tubes, but none of the firms had export sales.

Steel tubes, like those here imported, are also manufactured in the United States where they are sold at a delivered price “slightly less than the delivered price of the tubing manufactured in Canada” (B. 84), but not enough to materially distort the profits of International Stamping and Muffler Corp. in their manufacturing operations.

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Related

Magnesium Elektron, Inc. v. United States
65 Cust. Ct. 762 (U.S. Customs Court, 1970)
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63 Cust. Ct. 706 (U.S. Customs Court, 1969)
Luckytex, Ltd. v. United States
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
60 Cust. Ct. 716, 1968 Cust. Ct. LEXIS 2671, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/f-w-myers-co-v-united-states-cusc-1968.