New Customs Infringement Scheme (INS) Penalties

New Customs Infringement Scheme (INS) Penalties

To all importers,

Please be aware of the new Customs Infringement Scheme (INS) penalties as at 01.02.14. Listed below are just some of them.

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• If a brokerage is responsible for including false information in an import declaration, the INS penalty would be $7,630 per offence, or 75% of the short-paid duty, whichever is greater.  In the past, only the importer was liable for such errors, even if it wasn’t really their fault. So the Customs Broker will be liable as well as the importer if the importer provides false information.

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• If an import company or a broker fails to keep commercial documents for five years, or fails to produce those commercial documents when required to do so, the INS penalty would be $3,825 per offence.  In the past, there was no INS penalty and our only option was to prosecute the offender.

Full details are available on Customs website at this link:

http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/INSGuide2014.pdf