The exportation of customs goods requires various procedures to be followed; therefore, it is necessary to know customs and tax laws.
Exportation is a procedure promoted by various governments to encourage trade. This activity is controlled strictly and in detail by customs and tax legislation. Any goods leaving national territory must be subject to customs control. Furthermore, the goods should carry a declaration and authorization for exportation.
In practice, exportation is a transfer outside the EU in which commercial goods are sent abroad, outside European customs territory. When the goods arrive at customs ready to be exported, they are subject to a series of controls; if all the requirements are not duly fulfilled, or if the commercial goods do not bear a certificate of exportation, the customs office seizes the goods.
It is possible however to carry out clearance, i.e. the payment of customs duties, to clear the goods and permit their exportation. The owner and a representative will show the customs declaration for exportation and customs will be responsible for the destination of the goods and where they are packaged and loaded. The declaration will be sent electronically to the customs office of destination.
The exportation office, after having accepted the document, analyses possible tax and general safety risks. After performance of due inspections, the goods are released and exported. During transportation of the goods, the various customs offices will ensure that the goods leave the territory correctly, following all of the procedures provided for and arrive at their intended recipient. Here we refer to final exportation because it has a positive outcome.
There are other export procedures, such as exportation for the passive perfecting system or the important customs system of temporary exportation: it is possible to export goods in a determined period without paying any customs duties when the goods are sent abroad to undergo processing or repair.
For this type of system, the obligation exists to later return the goods to the country from which they were exported. Temporary exportation also includes goods that must be subject to studies or experiments or are used for exhibits at trade fairs for a maximum period of two years.
All information for the purpose of importation of goods must be explained by the customs official. The goods must bear a declaration of temporary issuance. There are customs assistance departments, called “CAD” concerned with assisting their clients, acting as intermediaries in the relationship between the exporter and foreign entities.
However, they provide qualified consulting for performance of customs procedures, creating the exportation documents, monitoring goods, and taking care of tax declarations. This is a practical and useful support for clients with international commercial relationships requiring assistance from these specific agencies. It is necessary to have a clear concept of the functioning of the customs system; it is a complex tax and legislative system that is extremely difficult to understand.
The customs documents are essentially the set of regulations and procedures through which the goods must pass to be considered suitable for exportation. The goods subject to suspension of taxes may be acquired by the usual exporters that, in contact with customs, approve the goods without incurring any VAT payment.