Methodology

How Palisade keeps the catalogue correct.

The cite-everything principle, written down so it can actually be inspected. Sources, versioning, origin-rule logic, what we automate, what we leave to a human, and what we will not promise.

Section 01

Collection

Every preferential tariff rate in Palisade has three attached sources: the legal agreement text, the implementing gazette notification from the destination country, and the current ITC MacMap record. Where these disagree, we flag the discrepancy and default to the most recent primary source.

For India specifically, we track both the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) notifications and the Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess (AIDC) surcharges separately, since India's effective import duty on agricultural commodities includes multiple layered duties that change on different notification cycles.

Beyond tariff rate data, Palisade maintains 1,288 Product-Specific Rules of Origin (PSRs) digitised directly from the ASEAN Secretariat's ATIGA Annex 3 XLS (endorsed 36th AFTAC Meeting, Oct 2022) and the Australian Border Force's RCEP Chapter 3 Annex 3A PDF. Every rule row includes its HS edition tag, effective date, legal instrument reference, and source URL.

Section 02

Versioning

Every tariff rate is versioned. When a rate changes, we keep the old record with its effective dates, so any shipment from the past 12 months can be audited against the rate that was legally in force on the day it cleared customs, not the rate that is in force today.

We ship a changelog. Every rate change in the catalogue over the past 90 days is visible to pilot customers.

HS edition is a first-class dimension throughout the catalogue. Every rule and rate is tagged HS 2012 / HS 2017 / HS 2022 with transposition mappings stored as a separate reference table. When a member state (e.g. Myanmar under RCEP) remains operationally on HS 2017 while the agreement text is HS 2022, both are tracked.

Section 03

Origin rules

Rules of origin are checked against the agreement text's Product-Specific Rules (PSR) annex. For each HS code on a given corridor, we store:

  • Regional Value Content (RVC) threshold
  • Change in Tariff Heading (CTH) requirements
  • Specific process requirements (where applicable)
  • Cumulation provisions across ASEAN members

Rules are applied against the user's bill of materials. Where we don't have a BOM, we flag the rule as unchecked rather than guessing.

Section 04

What is automated, what is analyst-reviewed

Automated
  • Daily MFN rate reconciliation
  • Gazette publication alerts for covered agreements
  • Origin-rule matching to HS codes
  • Shipment-level audit reconciliation
Analyst-reviewed
  • New agreement protocol interpretation
  • Ambiguous gazette language
  • Special Products and Highly Sensitive Track applications
  • Edge cases where the "lower of MFN or preferential" rule applies
  • Anti-dumping and safeguard duty interactions

We publish the ratio of automated to reviewed decisions in every monthly pilot report.

Section 05

What 'verified' means

A rate is marked verified in Palisade when all four are true:

  1. 01
    The preferential rate is confirmed against the agreement's Schedule of Concessions for the specific HS code and destination country.
  2. 02
    The effective MFN rate is confirmed against the latest gazette notification or customs tariff (including all surcharges and cesses).
  3. 03
    The origin rules have been confirmed for the specific lane.
  4. 04
    The 'applicable lower rate' logic has been applied (important for India AIFTA Special Products).
Section 06

What we do not guarantee

  • Palisade is an intelligence product, not a legal opinion. Use with your customs broker or trade counsel.
  • Rates can change between the last catalogue refresh and your shipment clearance. We surface the date each rate was last verified.
  • Non-tariff measures (NTMs), anti-dumping duties, and countervailing duties are flagged but not priced.
  • TRQ (tariff-rate quota) utilisation is surfaced but not predicted.
Section 07

What we fix if we get it wrong

If a Palisade recommendation leads to an underpaid or overpaid duty claim, we will work with the pilot customer and their broker to file the post-clearance amendment. We do not charge for error correction during the pilot year.

Section 08

Commodity-slice verification

For each commodity category where Palisade publishes rates, we run an adversarial audit pass. A 50-claim sample across palm oil, processed agri, and rubber (April 2026) measured a 20-27% adversarial correction rate on policy-volatile slices (palm oil: Indonesia B40 mandate, CPO export levy trajectory, EUDR risk classifications, India BCD changes) versus a 7% rate on slower-moving categories (processed agri).

This is why we monitor continuously, not on an annual review cycle.

Section 09

On the ASEAN Tariff Finder

The ASEAN Tariff Finder (launched August 2023, operated by the ASEAN Secretariat) is a useful public reference, and we use it ourselves as a cross-check against ITC MacMap. It covers preferential rates for ATIGA, ACFTA, AJCEP, AKFTA, AIFTA, AANZFTA, AHKFTA, and RCEP across the ten original ASEAN members.

Palisade is a different layer. The ATF tells you what the rates are. Palisade takes your shipments, reconciles each one against every applicable preferential regime on that corridor, checks origin eligibility against the underlying rule-of-origin text, and generates a post-clearance refund packet where a gap exists. Palisade tells you whether you claimed the right one.

What the ATF does not do
  • Origin-rule checking
  • Shipment-level reconciliation
  • Post-clearance audit
  • API / programmatic access
  • Historical versioning
  • Refund-letter generation

See how Palisade would read your corridors.

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