Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

[2025] UKUT 00142 (TCC)

Fecha: 12-Mar-2025

Rules of origin

(2)

Rules of origin

14.

Rules of origin matter greatly in international trade. They are used – these are examples only – (i) in charging differentiated tariffs or import duties which vary according to the country of origin and (ii) for the application of sanctions.

15.

The TARIC Code may or may not say something about origin. But even where the TARIC Code says nothing about origin (e.g. it is simply a reference to a particular type of banana (to pick a product at random) produced anywhere in the world, TARIC Codes are vital in providing the language by which one can speak about origin.

16.

In international trade, products are not simply transported or in transit: they are often worked upon during the course of their journey from initial manufacture to final sale to the ultimate consumer (being the person who buys to use for themselves and not on-sell). The present case is a case in point. As we have described (at [8(2)]), Canadian Solar acquired solar cells in Taiwan, incorporating these into solar panels in Vietnam. The TARIC Codes differ according to whether the product in question is a “cell” or a “panel”; the TARIC Codes also differ (in the case of solar cells and solar panels) according to the place of origin.

17.

This dual purpose use of the TARIC Code – to describe the product and to designate origin – is the source of the problems in this case, resulting in a system that is, when actually used by importers into the EU, incoherent and unsatisfactory. The relevant codes in this case are as follows:

TARIC Code	Description (This is a paraphrasing of the actual, rather more granular, detail contained in the UK Integrated Online Tariff database, which counsel for HMRC helpfully took both the FTT and us to. The granularity does not matter for these purposes: indeed, it obscures, rather than assists, hence the paraphrasing.)
8541 40 90 49	Solar modules consigned from anywhere other than China, Malaysia and Taiwan. This is referred to as the Solar Module Code at [8(3)(a)].
8541 40 90 53	Solar modules consigned from Taiwan. This is referred to as the Alternative Solar Module Code at [8(5)(a)].
8541 40 90 71	Solar cells consigned from anywhere other than China, Malaysia and Taiwan.
8541 40 90 73	Solar cells consigned from Taiwan.

18.

The first eight digits in the TARIC Codes are exactly the same. The last two digits – “9.10.” – do a lot of work. They differentiate between both product type and place of origin. Thus, the TARIC Codes ending in …71, …72 and …73 all describe cells but with different origins, as follows:

(1)

…73 (cells consigned from Taiwan)

(2)

…72 (cells consigned from Malaysia)

(3)

…71 (cells consigned from the rest of the world)

We are not going to list all of the TARIC Codes concerning cells and modules, but the same or similar pattern can be discerned in the case of modules.