Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT/2023/000023 - [2024] UKUT 00096 (TCC)

Fecha: 23-Ene-2024

Classification Regulation 350/2014

Classification Regulation 350/2014

15.

The classification regulation in issue in this case is Commission Implementing Regulation 350/2014.

16.

Column 1 describes the products as follows (a photograph included in the regulation and stated to be for information appears in the Annex to this decision):

‘Article consisting of a wooden box covered on the inside and outside with textile fabric. The box has an opening in the front allowing a cat to enter it and is big enough for a cat to sleep in it. On top of the box a paperboard tube is mounted vertically. The tube is covered with a cord of sisal fixed to it. The cord is made of spun sisal fibres and measures more than 20 000 decitex. The tube is sustaining a wooden platform covered with textile fabric. The platform is big enough to allow a cat to lie on it. A wooden tube covered in textile fabric on the inside and outside is fixed to the bottom of the platform. The tube is wide enough to allow a cat to crawl into it.

The textile fabric used is woven pile fabric (plush of polyester). The total surface of the textile fabric is bigger than the surface of the sisal material.’

17.

Column (2) gives the classification CN code as 6307 90 98, being the heading for ‘other made-up textile articles’.

18.

Column (3), which sets out the reasons for the classification, refers to the classification as being determined by GIR 1, 3(b) and 6, note 7(f) to Section XI, and the wording of CN codes 6307, 6307 90 and 6307 90 98 and continues:

‘Given its objective characteristics, the article is intended to attract cats and keep them away from furniture that they would otherwise occupy.

[…]

The textile material (the woven textile fabric and the sisal cord) is essential in enabling the product to be used as intended because it attracts cats which can e.g. scratch their claws, sit, sleep on it and play with it. It is therefore the textile material (not the wood or paperboard) that gives the article its essential character within the meaning of GIR 3(b).

As it cannot be determined whether the sisal or the woven textile material is more essential to attract cats, the bigger quantity of the woven textile fabric and the wider variety of activities it provides to the cat are considered to give the article its essential character within the meaning of

GIR3(b) … Within the meaning of note 7(f) to Section XI, the woven textile fabric is assembled by sewing and is consequently a made-up textile article of textile fabric.’