In this week’s bulletin, the UK has promised a new law to remove “outdated” EU rules, read the latest updates to the Trader Support Service, HMRC are looking for feedback from importers and exporters on ways to improve; and in Ireland, Revenue announces a new export customs system which is expected to go live in January 2023.
UK promises new law to remove “outdated” EU rules
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out plans for a “Brexit Freedoms Bill”, which promises new legislation to more easily remove “outdated” EU rules, in a bid to reduce bureaucracy for UK businesses.
In a statement, the UK government said that such a bill would bring an end to the “special status of EU law and ensure that it can be more easily amended or removed.” Last year, former Brexit negotiator David Frost launched two reviews of all retained EU laws kept on the UK statute book with a view to establishing whether they were beneficial to the UK.
Changes to EU rules retained following Brexit would require lengthy primary legislation. The new bill would allow changes to happen more quickly.
The Attorney General, Suella Braverman, said “Setting up a mechanism to deal with these legacy EU rules is essential. It underpins our ability to grasp important opportunities provided by Brexit. It means we can move away from outdated EU laws that were the result of unsatisfactory compromises within the EU, some of which the UK voted and lobbied against – but was required to adopt without question.”
Revenue’s new Automated Export System to ‘go live’ in January 2023
Revenue will deploy its new Export System, the Automated Export System (AES) in January 2023. This replaces the existing AEP export system and export Manifest. The AES, deployed as part of the Union Customs Code, will impact export supply chain partners and according to Revenue “involves the use of a new dataset, the provision of new data by certain players, new software, interacting with a new Revenue IT system and the export procedure itself.”
The introduction of AES means that all players engaged in electronic messaging for the Customs export procedure must have the capacity to interact with AES from January 2023. Revenue will close AEP export for all new Export movements and eManifest in March 2023.
Public Interface Testing (PIT) for AES will be open to software developers by July 2022. A meeting to share more information about the upcoming changes will take place next week targeting software and in-house developers, in conjunction with Revenue’s Change Management Unit.
Read more in Revenue’s eCustoms notification 03/22.
Updates to Trader Support Service (TSS)
The TSS has been updated with new features to support traders completing declarations when moving goods into Northern Ireland.
Entry summary validation for controlled goods movements
- On 25 January 2022, new functionality was added to TSS for controlled goods under the simplified journey to ensure that all required information is provided prior to submission of the Entry Summary (ENS) declaration
- If any of the information is missing, you will see an error message on the screen and be prompted to enter the missing data before successfully submitting your ENS
- The benefit is to reduce the number of errors being made and make it easier for you to identify any missing information for controlled goods movements
- For any mixed consignments of controlled and non-controlled goods, you will need to supply full line level details for all goods (including non-controlled), meaning it might be easier to create separate consignments for controlled and non-controlled goods.
ENS User Guides have also been consolidated into one guide and the Live Animal Movements to Northern Ireland guide has been updated with more detailed guidance for movements into Northern Ireland from Rest of World countries and from the EU via the Great Britain bridge.
Read more
Latest Trader Support Service (TSS) Bulletin
The 61st edition of the TSS Bulletin covers the following:
- A new TSS Survey
- Applying to the UK Trader Scheme for goods not ‘at risk’ of moving to the EU
- Applying for and using your own Duty Deferment Account
Improving HMRC services – help needed
HMRC would like to talk to sole traders or businesses with fewer than 50 employees that are based in:
- NI and import from GB or another non-EU country
- NI and export to a non-EU country other than GB
- GB or another non-EU country, and export to NI
Sign up to give feedback using this link.
Northern Ireland Customs & Trade Academy (NICTA)
Find guides, webinars, and training to assist with your customs movements and using TSS