Vol. 138, No. 51 — December 18, 2004

Regulations Amending the Accounting for Imported Goods and Payment of Duties Regulations

Statutory authority

Customs Act

Sponsoring agency

Canada Border Services Agency

REGULATORY IMPACT
ANALYSIS STATEMENT

(This statement is not part of the Regulations.)

Description

The Customs Act requires that all duties be paid on imported goods before the goods are released. However, under certain conditions, goods may be released prior to the payment of duties owing if security has been given.

The amendment to the Accounting for Imported Goods and Payment of Duties Regulations will allow the Solicitor General of Canada to determine the maximum amount of duties and taxes payable on commercial goods that can be secured by a credit card.

Alternatives

The amendment to paragraph 11(1)(e) of the Regulations is the only means available to allow the Solicitor General of Canada to establish credit card limits with respect to the amount of security to be given for the release of commercial importations prior to payment of duties and taxes.

Benefits and costs

By giving the Solicitor General of Canada the flexibility to set the credit card limits for securing the release of commercial importations, this amendment will allow the Solicitor General to alter such limits in a timely fashion and meet the frequently changing needs of Canadian businesses. This will also result in savings for small businesses by simplifying customs release procedures.

Consultation

These Regulations are being amended in response to numerous requests from commercial importers. Consultations with small business importers have indicated strong support for more flexibility to modify credit card limits.

The brokerage community expressed concern regarding a perceived unlevel playing field as licensed customs brokers are not eligible to use a credit card for the purpose of transacting business with customs. However, the use of credit cards in the commercial stream is limited to clients who have no standing security arrangement with customs.

They also contend that by amending the Regulations, any future increase to the credit card limit will not require publishing in the Canada Gazette, thus rendering the process less transparent. The brokerage community has been advised that clients and stakeholders will continue to be consulted via a customs proposal prior to initiating any changes to the credit card limit.

Compliance and enforcement

These Regulations will not impede the ability of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to carry out its enforcement mandate. The Agency will continue to protect Canadian society by carrying out inspection activities and verifying the accounting information provided by importers.

Contact

Ms. Nancy Légère, Acting Manager, Entry, Accounting and Adjustment Policy, Import Process Division, Customs Operational Policy and Coordination and Field Operations, Canada Border Services Agency, Sir Richard Scott Building, 8th Floor, 191 Laurier Avenue W, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L8, (613) 941-1035 (telephone), (613) 946-0242 (facsimile), Nancy.Legere@ ccra-adrc.gc.ca (electronic mail).

PROPOSED REGULATORY TEXT

Notice is hereby given that the Governor in Council, pursuant to sections 32 (see footnote a), 33 (see footnote b) and 35 (see footnote c), paragraph 164(1)(i) (see footnote d) and subsection 166(1) of the Customs Act (see footnote e), proposes to make the annexed Regulations Amending the Accounting for Imported Goods and Payment of Duties Regulations.

Interested persons may make representations with respect to the proposed Regulations within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice. All such representations must cite the Canada Gazette, Part I, and the date of publication of this notice, and be addressed to the Manager, Legislative Affairs, Canada Border Services Agency, 4th Floor, 150 Isabella Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L5.

Persons making representations should identify any of those representations the disclosure of which should be refused under the Access to Information Act, in particular under sections 19 and 20 of that Act, and should indicate the reasons why and the period during which the representations should not be disclosed. They should also identify any representations for which there is a consent to disclosure for the purposes of that Act.

Ottawa, December 13, 2004

EILEEN BOYD
Assistant Clerk of the Privy Council

REGULATIONS AMENDING THE ACCOUNTING
FOR IMPORTED GOODS AND PAYMENT OF
DUTIES REGULATIONS

AMENDMENT

1. Paragraph 11(1)(e) of the Accounting for Imported Goods and Payment of Duties Regulations (see footnote 1) is replaced by the following:

(e) subject to subsection (3), where the goods are commercial goods on which the duties payable are less that the amount that the Minister determines, a remittance by credit card in respect of which the importer or owner of the goods is the cardholder or authorized user, where the issuer of the credit card has entered into an agreement with the Government of Canada establishing the conditions of the acceptance and use of that credit card.

COMING INTO FORCE

2. These Regulations come into force on the day on which they are registered.

[51-1-o]

Footnote a

S.C. 2001, c. 25, s. 21

Footnote b

S.C. 2002, c. 22, s. 334

Footnote c

S.C. 1995, c. 41, s. 11

Footnote d

S.C. 1992, c. 28, s. 30(1)

Footnote e

R.S., c. 1 (2nd Supp.)

Footnote 1

SOR/86-1062

NOTICE:
The format of the electronic version of this issue of the Canada Gazette was modified in order to be compatible with hypertext language (HTML). Its content is very similar except for the footnotes, the symbols and the tables.

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