TradeLane

I have come to quite enjoy the ‘Full English’ breakfast since moving to London last year. Packed with all the day’s calories and none of its nutrition, the full plate of eggs, bacon, hash browns, beans, and tomato has become a weekend favourite.

My breakfast on June 24^th was a much more sensible choice of coffee and toast. However, it was made memorable by the Referendum results in Britain over whether or not we should stay in the European Union.

With all votes tallied, the United Kingdom had decided by referendum to leave the EU.

Does everyone remember Y2K?

The whole world was under the impression that, at the turn of midnight on December 31^st, 1999, all our computers would simply stop functioning and we would enter the equivalent of a cyber stone age. I remember vividly sitting on the couch, watching the TV as the ball dropped in Times Square, waiting to see if all the lights were going to go off at any minute.

Alas, the lights stayed on, the computers still worked, and we all moved forward.

EU traders had a similar feeling when May 1^st rolled around and the Union Customs Code (UCC) - a union-wide re-write of the customs regulations within Europe - became effective.

Did you know that the first football match Queen Elizabeth attended was the 1953 FA Cup Final? Did you know that, during her reign, there have been 12 prime ministers? Did you know that the queen has, during her entire reign, answered around three and a half million items of correspondence?

Obviously, there’s a lot to know about the Royals. They are inescapable if you live in the UK. The Queen is on all of our money; we pay taxes and import duties to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Heck, I even pulled all those facts off of royal.gov.uk.

As a trade consultant, the Royal family is not the only kind of royalty I am interested in. There is also plenty to know about Royalty Payments and how they impact the declared value of goods when they are brought into the European Union.

Over the recent holidays, I was having a discussion with my wife regarding how different cultures celebrate and which days are the most important. Being American, my family has always placed a certain emphasis on Christmas Eve. We have dinner together and open one present that evening, while reserving Christmas Day for a leisure breakfast, late lunch, and a trip to the cinema in the afternoon. My wife is Colombian and had a different experience growing up. In Colombia, they do not do a lot to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve; all of the festivities take place on Christmas Day. Since we recently moved to the UK, we were both looking forward to the emphasis on Boxing Day. 

The European Commission, however, has let us know that they celebrate Christmas on December 29^th and provided the trade industry with the gift of the Union Customs Code, Delegating and Implementing Acts. The Union Customs Code replaces the Community Customs Code with the goal of modernizing processes and regulations to match up to today’s business climate and technology. The Union Customs Code is effective May 1^st, 2016, but implementation is going to be phased over three years. 

As seasons change, so does the make-up of your product line. If you are an apparel company, last season’s shorts and tee shirts can turn into next season's flannel underwear and parkas. Maybe you work for a technology company and the cases you make for last season’s hot phone have become less in demand since the new model came out.

So, what happens to all that unsold merchandise? Do you recycle it? Do you throw it in the dumpster in the warehouse? Does it get used for kindling at your company’s annual fall cookout? Bottom line, are you recovering any import duty on that unused merchandise that you are destroying? There’s an ‘app’ for that. Apply for Duty Drawback privileges on destroyed merchandise.