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UKWA pressure pays off
[ May 15, 2015 // Chris ]The UK Warehousing Association says that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has reviewed the time taken to approve applicants to operate excise businesses and the conditions imposed on them, following a campaign.
The review has found that the approval process has often taken too long and conditions applied in some cases may unjustly restricted business activity.
Applications should now be processed by HMRC within 45 working days rather than an indeterminate time and conditions will not be imposed upon approvals unless fully justified. Approved persons may also ask HMRC to consider revocation of existing conditions.
UKWA excise duty specialist Alan Powell (pictured below) said: “There should now be certainty about approval timescales and expectation of the correct exercise of HMRC’s powers of discretion with regard to imposition of conditions and restrictions. HMRC has also showed it can listen if one pounds the door hard enough.”
UKWA chief executive, Peter Ward, added that there was a need to balance government initiatives to eliminate fraud and collect revenue against “draconian measures that make business increasingly difficult for our members, as well as other operators in the logistics sector and retailers.”
