Recent developments by the UK P&I Club
The UK P&I Club has posted on its website bulletin to inform about the recent developments in the method of administrative fines on Cargo Shortage/ Overage Cases in Turkey.
The Law Regarding Amendments to the Customs Law and Other Laws and Statutory Decrees (Law No. 6455) entered into force on 11.04.2013 has amended some provisions under the Turkish Customs Code (TCC), whose scope is to lay down the customs rules that shall apply to goods and means of transport entering into and exiting from the Customs Territory of the Republic of Turkey.
In addition to the above, the legislator has regulated some changes in the Customs Regulation (Regulation No. 27369) via the By-Law Related to Making Amendments on the Same promulgated on 21.11.2013 (By-Law No. 28828). As detailed below, there have been some considerable changes on the factors which go into the calculation of administrative fines.
1.Article 237/1 of TCC used to read as follows:
In the default of demonstrating within the period prescribed by the customs administration, that the packages, proved to be deficient as a result of the amount registered in the summary declarations or the commercial or official papers used as summary declarations submitted to the customs administration, have not been loaded from their provenance or have been unloaded in another port or lost or stolen due to any accident or average; and provided that the tariff classification of the goods kept within these deficient packages cannot be determined, a fine shall be charged on these goods, at an amount equalled to customs duty under their tariff classification or in case the tariff classification cannot be determined, under the highest dutiable classification of the chapter in accordance with the nature and the description of the goods.
Please note that the phrase “at an amount equalled to customs duty” has been changed to “at an amount equalled to customs duties” by the article 14 of “Law No 6455”. In view of this, value added tax (VAT) and/or private consumption tax (PCT) and/or other taxes/costs also take a role in adopting of the particular estimation of fines. As a result, extent of administrative penalties has increased depending on the nature and the description of the goods after the Customs Offices have recently begun to put the afore mentioned provision into practice.
2.The amendment has been introduced to article 75/7 of “Regulation No. 27369” by article 2 of “By-Law No. 28828”, which is as follows:
In the events of shortage/deficiency or overage/excessiveness in the summary declarations resulting in a proceeding, the proceedings or the customs fines, if any, are no longer applied for the whole shortage/deficiency or overage/excessiveness quantity but for the quantity exceeding the discrepancies that do not require a proceeding as determined by the decree of Administration. No penal transaction/proceeding is made for the quantity that is within the range of discrepancies that are determined not to be subject to a proceeding.
The subject amendment is designed to establish the balance in the conflicting interests by taking account of the former amendment resulting in an unfavourable increase.
Source: The UK P&I Club
