EU Amends Customs Regs on Penalty Forgiveness, Entry Cancellation Timelines
The European Union is making several changes to its customs regulations that will take effect in 2020, according to a notice published March 25 in the EU Official Journal. Among other amendments to the EU’s Union Customs Code, temporary storage will be added to the list of customs procedures covered by penalty “extinguishment” provisions, timelines will be changed for invalidating certain customs declarations, and new duty-free provisions will be added for certain goods exported for repair or alteration.
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The “extinguishment of a customs debt” provision newly applicable to temporary storage procedures applies where the non-compliance “had no significant effect on the correct operation of the procedure concerned, did not constitute an attempt at deception, and the situation was subsequently regularized,” the notice said. In those situations, “temporary storage should not be treated differently to a customs procedure,” it said.
The time frame for invalidating entry summary declarations when the goods covered by the declaration have not actually been brought into the customs territory of the EU will be changed to 200 days after the declaration was lodged, instead of within 200 days, “since that is the period within which the goods must be brought into the customs territory of the Union,” the notice said. Similarly, the period for invalidating exit summary declarations will be changed from within 150 days to after 150 days.
New provisions are added providing “total relief from import duty” for “goods that have been repaired or altered under the outward processing procedure in a country or territory with which the Union has concluded an international agreement providing for such relief,” the notice said. The scope of that relief is limited to the “import of the products that have actually been repaired or altered in the country or territory concerned,” and it will not apply to the “import of repaired or altered products obtained from equivalent goods or of replacement products under the standard exchange system,” the notice said.
Another amended provision requires that, where “an entry summary declaration was not lodged before the goods were brought into the customs territory of the Union and the obligation to lodge it has not been waived, economic operators should submit the data and information normally included in entry summary declarations in their customs declarations or temporary storage declarations,” the notice said. “For those purposes, the possibility to lodge a customs declaration or a temporary storage declaration instead of an entry summary declaration should be available only if the customs authorities where the goods are being presented so allow.”
Other amendments include the inclusion of the Italian municipality of Campione d’Italia and the Italian waters of Lake Lugano in the customs territory of the EU. The amended regulations also clarify that a holder of an EU binding tariff information decision “can use that decision for up to six months after the BTI decision has been revoked if the revocation results from the fact that that decision does not comply with customs legislation or that the conditions laid down for taking BTI decisions have not been, or are no longer, fulfilled,” the notice said.