Select Tire Salvage Co., Inc. v. The United States. The Connecticut Tire Company, Inc. v. The United States

OPINION

NICHOLS, Judge *

These two cases, consolidated for trial, involve the taxability of tire carcasses imported by the plaintiffs from Europe, where they originally had been sold as new tires. The great majority of these carcasses had left on them a tread pattern of two thirty-seconds of an inch or less. Although the tread pattern was completely, or mostly, worn off, plaintiffs sought to purchase only carcasses in condition for recapping, with no sidewall damage, cracks, breaks, or oxidation damage. The imports were sold by the plaintiffs to recappers, except for some that were sold as…