Barbourne Brook

Businesses struggle to have a clear view of their customs declarations because they use third parties to submit these on their behalf, or use Duty Management Systems with limited reporting. Those in the know subscribe to electronic customs data from HMRC but even this data is limited and hard to use. Others spend significant time and effort chasing their brokers for documentation, carrying out sample checks or simply abdicate responsibility and hope they are not selected for audit.

Customs Landscape utilises a wealth of consulting experience by applying our proven method of analysing your unique business customs profile and applying a checklist of over 200 planning ideas and common mistakes to uncover threats and opportunities for your business.

Barbourne Brook's Customs Support Service lets you leverage our understanding of your business, experienced consultants, cumulative knowledge gained from working with lots of businesses and paid technical subscriptions.

Using Inward Processing requires your business to take on additional compliance obligations, in order to adhere to HMRC regulation including:
Ensuring the goods are put to the above qualifying use within time limits set by customs in order to avoid additional charges. The greater the level of Processing, the longer HMRC grant for you to put goods to a qualifying use. Businesses commonly use Inward Processing in conjunction with Customs Warehousing to create a Virtual Free Port which can greatly assist with the lowering of import VAT, customs duty and other affiliated HMRC charges.
Submitting periodic returns (known as Bills of Discharge) of goods imported and put to the qualifying use.
Releasing non-qualifying import or export goods and paying the necessary duty on them.
Ensuring the goods are imported and, if relevant, exported correctly, quoting the necessary HMRC and customs duty authorisation details and specific customs procedure codes.
Maintaining audit trails and supporting documentation (both customs and commercial) to be HMRC audit ready, helping to simplify most stages of your inward processing and assisting in the avoidance of any surprise charges.
Unfortunately, failure to meet all the requirements can result in loss of ongoing HMRC customs duty relief and claw-back of savings made to date leading to higher charges paid during the importation and exportation process.

A customs warehouse, sometimes referred to as a bonded warehouse, is like implementing a free port at your premises and delaying or removing the need to pay customs duties. At Barbourne Brook we can help you complete the application process for getting a customs warehouse in place in order to provide you with savings on VAT, HMRC or any additional affiliated charges.

The customs regulations enable businesses to recover any overpayments of customs duty going back up to three years. Furthermore, most customs duty relief schemes have the option of retrospective approval going back up to 12 months.

The customs regulations provide a significant number of specific options to reduce ongoing customs duty costs.
This improves gross profit margins and working capital through cash-flow savings.
Once in place, these savings can simply roll-on year after year, often with no additional work.
We have developed a database of over 170 customs planning savings ideas, gathering these from customs regulations, case law, customs internal guidance, previous successful experience etc. These ideas focus on the core elements that determine customs duty costs including classifications, origin rules and the use of Free Trade Agreements, customs valuation and the application and maximisation of customs duty relief arrangements.

Most businesses engage third party customs brokers to submit customs declarations but remain solely liable for the accuracy of these declarations and any customs duties and import VAT.

Capital projects are complex, involving acquisition, building, and supporting large amounts of plant and machinery. As they are often one-off, you may ignore some cost elements such as customs duties, resulting in high unnecessary costs. By planning ahead of time and utilising our services at Barbourne Brook, you can avoid HMRC and tariff charges leading to major savings on capital as well as simplifying the capital project process.
Customs planning involves modelling the customs duty costs under the options open to the business, making the suitable elections to minimise duty costs, and ensuring planning will pass scrutiny by the customs authorities. Failure to do so can lead to compliance issues which may result in additional HMRC charges being incurred.

Free Ports are one of the critical flagship policies launched by UK Government from Brexit in order to simplify and reduce charges during the process of importing goods into certain locations.
They offer businesses within specific geographic areas several benefits, including tax breaks and customs simplifications. This is done to boost import of goods into certain location and encourage the construction of trade routes while boosting both national and regional economies. By making use of a free port your business can save on import VAT and tariffs, find out how you can do so with the help of Barbourne Brook below.

Every businesses needs and supply chains are unique.
Our bespoke training course can be tailored to your individual needs in responding to the additional customs duty obligations, risks, and preparatory work required to navigate the increasingly complex area of customs. No matter how complex your structure, our experts can give you the clarity and confidence to operate effectively and efficiently in an ever-changing environment.

It has become apparent that the real casualties of Brexit are within the SME space and as such, Barbourne Brook has developed an SME focused training course covering the entire customs landscape.
This course aims to give businesses complete peace of mind and clarity on the options available to best navigate the new landscape.