What is customs?
Compliance for cargo
Customs and Border Protection plays a vital role in providing effective border protection for the Australian community. Traders are obliged to support Customs and Border Protection’s ability to do this. Ensuring traders understand and meet their obligations helps to prevent the movement of illegal and harmful goods across the border.
Timely and accurate reporting by the exporting community allows Customs and Border Protection to risk assess cargo, ensuring legitimate trade is facilitated via early clearance of goods through the border. Customs and Border Protection uses various methods to risk assess cargo and ensure compliance with legislation, standards and practices.
Transaction checks: Real-time and post transaction compliance activities are checks conducted using profile matches and research. Profiles consist of a set of criteria relating to particular aspects of a transaction and are used to identify cargo that requires closer evaluation. The law allows us to examine records for up to five years after a transaction.
Cargo examinations: Physical examinations are regularly undertaken at major ports to ensure information is correct, to detect prohibited and harmful goods, as well as checking that clients comply with export controls and safeguards.
Monitoring: Monitoring activities are used to gauge the level of compliance in the general exporting community. This enables Customs and Border Protection to measure the results of risk-based activities. Monitoring activities can also be used to pinpoint processes that may need to be reviewed from a user perspective.
Audits: Desktop audits are generally used to address a specific risk, such as goods misdescription and misclassification. Focused audits will include a visit from a compliance auditor. These audits examine specific aspects of your interaction with Customs and Border Protection, and are prompted by identified risks.
Comprehensive audits are generally used where risks have been identified, or as a response to intentional or continued non-compliance. These audits cover all aspects of your relationship with Customs and Border Protection such as export transactions, depot or warehouse operations, manufacturing or storage operations and systems. The controls within your company might be examined as part of the process.
Non-compliance
A failure to comply with Customs and Border Protection legislation could result in an infringement notice being issued. The Infringement Notice Scheme (INS) applies to a range of strict liability offences under customs legislation.
There is a range of offences subject to an infringement notice and these relate to:
- False or misleading statements
- Unauthorised movement of goods
- Alteration or interference with goods
- Loading goods for export without an authority to deal
- Movement, entering, reporting and handling of goods for export.
Exporters can avoid receiving an infringement notice and reduce their risk of falling into a profile selection through maintaining compliant, timely and accurate reporting and activities.
—For more information on Customs and Border Protection and ICS, or to access tutorials, FAQs and updates on technical issues, visit www.cargosupport.customs.gov.au or contact the Customs Information and Support Centre by phoning 1300 558 099 or email cargosupport@customs.gov.au
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