Question to retailers: HS Tariff codes for shipping?

[Felsir]

Today I received a letter from dutch customs: the package for my keyboard encoder was being held until additional duty taxes were paid. The package was classified according to HS Tariff 9504.20.80. From what I understood this classified it under the "parts for coin operated gambling machines", and put it under highest duty tax category- which made the purchase nearly twice as expensive.
This is the first time I had this happen to any of my BYOAC related purchases. So question to the retailers out there; what HS tariff code do you use for shipping? Or was I lucky in my previous purchases (or unlucky/bud judgement from the customs officer?)

Just to be clear it was not a PCB of an actual arcade machine- I can understand that such a board would be classified as a part of a coin operated machine.

[RandyT]

That's odd....I'm guessing it didn't come from us.  That code shows the following:

9504.20.80 - Articles nesoi and parts and accessories, for billiards

BTW, "NESOI" means "Not Elsewhere Specified or Included".  That particular code indicates the duty rate to be "Free" in the U.S., but this may vary from country to country. 

The problem you can run into is that the customs offices have final say on classification, so in your country they may, as a practice, look at potential uses and arbitrarily decide to classify it as something else which has the highest tariff rates.  Still, I'm not sure how such an item could be classified as being "for billiards". 

[Felsir]

Yes, my wording in was wrong it seems ("this classified it" should have been "they classified it"). Thus: upon inspecting they reclassified it to machine parts for coin operated gambling machines. For legal and tax reasons this is a different higher duty category. The 9504.20.80 code is the one on the parcel's original label.

It probably would be less of a problem if it was classified as "printed circuit board" in stead and would probably pass the initial duty officer's check and they wouldn't have felt the need to inspect and reclassify it into a different category.

(You're correct, it wasn't from you: so no worries- it was not your error).

[RandyT]

I think the problem you ran into is that the item in question was incorrectly classified by the shipper.  The customs agency knew it wasn't applicable to a billiard table, so they arbitrarily classified it at the higher duty rate of the application for which it could possibly be used.  There's a good chance that had it been correctly classified, they would have accepted it, and there would have been no reason for them to become involved.