Good Compliance Update - December 2019

The Australian Border Force (ABF) Goods Compliance Update for December has now been published and is available HERE

The majority of ABF identified errors in 2018/2019 continue to be in moving, altering or interfering with goods subject to Customs control without authority and errors on Full Import Declarations (FIDs) resulting in a loss of duty. Infringement Notice Scheme (INS) penalties on the former were close to $700,000 and on the latter $800,000.

Please refer to the commentary by Russell Wiese (Principal, Hunt & Hunt Layers):

"The statistics show that the ABF is becoming more comfortable issuing infringement notices for false statements that do not impact revenue (about a 75% increase in s243U infringement notices on 2017/18 levels).  At the same time, more non-revenue errors are being identified.  Importers, exporters and customs brokers are strongly encouraged to treat all fields of declarations as being important."
 
As the largest numbers of errors detected were for the delivery address, this update provides guidance that this address should be the ultimate delivery address and not the unpack address of a depot or logistics service provider.
 
While industry had been assured that valuation date was no longer an issue, this Compliance Update indicates that it is the second most common “error”. We understand that we shall soon receive a Draft ACN on this topic and look forward to reviewing it and finalising this issue.
 
A change to cargo reporting requirements is also included to clarify that the “original loading port code” should be the transhipment port, which may not be the same as the loading port shown on the FID