The Customs Department will begin charging commercial importers for not using electronic options to declare incoming goods.
The new fees will be levied through the Customs Department Act 1952 and the Government Fees Regulations 1976.
Starting this fall, any Bermuda Customs Declaration (BCD) submitted on paper will incur a manual data inputting fee. The fees are to be charged to the declarant at a rate of sixty cents (60¢) per record on each BCD submitted.
The fees could be substantial for some large importers landing different types of items. They will be levied by way of a direct charge to the importer’s duty account.
First raised during the Budget Debate in March by Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance the Hon. E.T. Richards JP MP, the fee is not a revenue raising measure.
It is an incentive to declarants of imported goods to file electronic submissions of BCDs. The fees offset the considerable cost in overtime to the Customs Department of manually inputting the data into the Customs Automated Processing System (CAPS).
Importers may submit electronic BCDs by filing to CAPS via the Customs File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site or by entering declaration data using the browser-based “Webtrader” facility offered by the Customs Department.
File transfers through the Customs FTP site require the in-house development, or the off-the-shelf purchase, of software. The Webtrader service is completely free of charge.
For more information, contact The Customs Department by mail, visit Customs House on Front Street or contact the CAPS Helpdesk Section of The Customs Department: email or (Tel: 278-7446).