On 17 May 2023, the European Commission (the “Commission”) published a set of proposals that, according to the Commission, constitute the “most ambitious and comprehensive reform of the EU Customs Union since its establishment in 1968.” Please find our previous blogpost in which we anticipated the proposal here. The proposals now published aim to: Additionally, the proposals also intend to change the EU VAT Directive to align VAT rules with the new customs framework. This…
Introduction of an EU Customs Agency is becoming more and more tangible. This idea of a “European Customs Agency” was first proposed on 31 March 2022 by the “Wise Persons Group on Challenges Facing the Customs Union”. More recently, on 28 February 2023, during the 62nd Plenary Meeting of the Trade Contact Group set up by the European Commission, the creation of an EU Customs Authority was once again discussed alongside the introduction of an…
The UK government announced on 15 March 2023 that customs valuation rulings, so-called Advance Valuation Rulings (âAVRâ), would soon be a feature of the UK Customs regime (please see our earlier blog here). On 27 April 2023, the UK government published guidance on submitting applications for an AVR with the system going live. This is despite the necessary legislative amendments not yet coming into force. An AVR is a legally binding ruling held by the…
Introduction Post-importation transfer pricing (âTPâ) adjustments have always presented great challenge for multinational companies doing business in China due to the lack of formal nationwide mechanism which simultaneously addresses the tax, customs and foreign exchange administration requirements, in order to allow customs valuation adjustment to be made in response to a post-importation TP adjustment. While a TP and customs aligned approach which was introduced in a pilot program in Shenzhen in 2022 allows retroactive TP…
In November we reported that the European Commission announced plans to include binding valuation information (“BVI”) decisions in its customs legislation. The Commission has published the draft Delegated Regulation and obtained feedback from a public consultation, which ended on 18 January 2023. The Commission describes this move as the completion of an already well-established legal and operational framework for issuing decisions relating to binding tariff classification information (“BTI”) and binding origin information (“BOI”). The aim…
The Spanish Customs Authorities (“SCA”) have released new guidelines (available only in Spanish) on provisional customs values and simplified declarations. The aim is to clarify the utilization of simplified declarations foreseen in Article 166 of the UCC due to the high number of queries from operators. The current guidelines supplement previous guidelines on this issue (our tax alert about them can be found here). Through the new guidelines the SCA analyses the proper method to…
As part of its slate of Customs measures announced for the Spring Budget 2023, the UK government confirmed yesterday, March 15, that AVRs will soon be a feature of the UK Customs regime. The long awaited mechanism will allow for legally binding rulings on the Customs Valuation methodology for the specified goods in a particular scenario, for a period of three years (subject to cancellation or withdrawal). Amendments will be made to the UK legislative…
Yesterday (15 March 2023), the Government announced its Spring Budget 2023, which included some long awaited changes to the current Customs regime (“Customs Package”). Broadly, the announcements capture improvements following the Government’s 2022 Call for Evidence on an independent Customs regime. Many of the changes have been anticipated by businesses (such as the Advance Valuation Rulings mechanism which we have blogged about separately today as well). A summary of these changes is set out below:…
The United Kingdom has agreed with the European Union a new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland which seeks to significantly reduce the number of checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The Windsor Framework would create two âlanesâ for goods which are arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain: Some product bans currently in place for goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain (for example on chilled sausages) will also be removed,…
Baker McKenzieâs Global Supply Chain Compliance Blog published âCBP to Deploy the Long-Anticipated UFLPA Region Alert,â which can be viewed here.