FAO Hudds

[Tom Joad]

Hudds, I'm sorry to have to ask you to explain this to me like I'm an inattentive 6-year-old, but if there are collecting hauliers operating across borders and purporting to hold Transit Guarantees, shouldn't there be some kind of register in place whereby their credentials can easily be validated?

Ought to be but I dunno.  See, the chap (distiller) is confused about the movement guarantee for excise goods in free circulation under the Excise Movemement Control System (EMCS) and the guarantee required for goods in transit under the (customs) transit convention under the New Computerized Transit System (NCTS) and misunderstanding the entire processes.  The guarantee is a bit of the system compliance "hierarchy" for both systems for excise goods but folk get confused because only EMCS was used for movements to the EU (and was much simpler) for excise goods pre 1/1/2021.  The guarantee referred to as "traditional" is a completely different thing, not "traditional".  My work is explaining the difference and pointing them in the right direction in the first place for customs movements/requirements.  Brexit gain, forsooth!

FWIW, the NCTS isn't new at all - it was set up before EMCS (Alcatel boffins worked both up; I worked with Alcatel and the EU Commission on the law for the EMCS which commenced 1999 and Alcatel used the NCTS architecture for EMCS (or so they said)).

You can't check on either system about the validity of a guarantee so far as I am aware - you have to ask (in this case) HMRC's verification officers (which takes time by the way).

The guarantees are pointless anyway. For excise under EMCS, only a fraction of the duty is ever covered by the guarantee.  The greater significance is that the entity (ie the consigning warehouskeeper or haulier) providing the guarantee always has absolute liabiility for any irregularity detected in the course of the movement, regardless of culpability.  So it's the insurance that is key for full loads being diverted.  For the NCTS as I recall, the full duty has to be guaranteed per movement but again it's really the insurance that is vital.  I've told HMRC/HMT I want rid of the guarantees for EMCS - just assign the duty liability to the entity in custody of goods under duty suspension. I got rid  of premises guarantees ("bonds") wef September last year; movement guarantees need to go the same way.

Cracking read. Once I'd started,  I couldn't put it down...