The Finance Bill 2011 (Section 54), when signed into law, will introduce administrative penalties for infringements of the EU Customs Code. The penalties will bring Ireland into line with the practice in most other EU Member States and will help to ensure uniform application of the EU Customs rules.

The infringements and penalties covered in the Section are

• failure to submit a declaration (penalty of €2,000);
  
• late submission of a declaration (penalty of €250 for each month for which a declaration is outstanding, subject to a maximum of €2,000);
  
• submission of an incorrect or incomplete declaration (penalty of €100);
  
• not being in possession of documentation necessary to support an electronic declaration (penalty of €250);
  
• failure to comply with Article 38 or Article 101 of the Community Customs Code (penalty of €500); and
  
• failure to comply with any other provision of the Community Customs Code (penalty of €250).
  

These penalties represent a new departure in relation to Customs matters. Accordingly, for the time being at least, the general approach followed by Revenue will be to firstly issue a warning and only seek a penalty if the infringement continues after that warning.

Click here to see the notice from Revenue on the issue.