Sea change for Customs, practice?

THE MESSAGE the newly-renamed Customs and Border Protection Service (CBPS) has been drumming in to the industry for much of the year has been that it is ploughing through a host of reviews.
Director of compliance operations New South Wales Doug Greaves should report by June 30 on a national cargo control review with a view to greater uniformity.
The service is looking into alternatives to benchmark audits, such as desktop audits or pre-clearance checks, to lift the burden from the service and brokers; and importers alike.
Director of compliance operations Victoria Sue Knight has overseen a study of refund claims risks, which has seen responsibility transferred to the trade section of the compliance division to give it the same risk-management approach.
This includes a benchmarking program; the targeting of high-risk transactions for pre-payment check or post-payment verification; a quality assurance program; and the consistent application of the infringement notice scheme.
Pre-payment checking of refund claims, now in Melbourne, will be moved to Adelaide.
A new risk assessment model will be rolled out in the next financial year, with self-assessed clearances and deliveries without authority to be scrutinised closely.
And the service has promised periodic “campaigns” focusing on particular risks, starting with cargo control and intellectual property rights.
The service has warned that the Enhanced Customs Amendment Bill, that entered Federal Parliament in the current sitting, has proposed that failing to keep goods (including non-dutiable goods) under customs control safely and to account for such goods if required, would be an offence.
Further work on the two issues was being undertaken and an increase in cargo control and accounting work at licensed premises and import intervention on self-assessed clearances was likely.
The Federal Government flagged in the recent Budget that industry will be asked to shoulder a greater percentage of government costs.
Deputy chief executive for passenger and trade facilitation Neil Mann sought to soften the blow at the Australian Federation of International Forwarders conference earlier this month.
“Over the past couple of years, we have probably been under-recovering, to some degree, the full costs,” Mr Mann said.
The next review of the import processing charge would be next year but he saw no reason to raise charges before then.
“I think it is important for everyone in the industry to gear up for that to make sure it is set at an appropriate level, given the forecast trade volumes.
“My own view is that there is no need for an increase before then.”
Mr Mann believed the service performs quite well.
Its recent time release study showed that risk assessment and intervention processes undertaken by Customs and AQIS take on average 1.4 days, he said, along with a further 2.3 days on average during which the consignments were held pending payment.
Arrival to release took 1.3 days for sea-cargo.
This compared with 2.7 days for sea cargo in Japan and 3.5 days for sea cargo in South Korea.
The service believed the primary focus should be on moving forward the time by which full documentation is lodged.
It did not see Customs as a major impediment to timely clearance.
However there did remain a number of what he described as lower level “irritants”.
More timely lodgement of the full import declaration provided the greatest leverage point for forwarders, Mr Mann said.