shipping - what's the sudden need for POA?

[tphase]

I've been shipping stuff for years as part of my work. Mostly small-ish stuff via couriers, but also heavier freight mainly to and from Europe, the US and occasionally Australia. Normally the company handling the shipments would also take care of customs clearance unless otherwise instructed.
All of a sudden, companies are requiring power of attorney forms to be filled out before they will clear goods through customs.

can any shipping experts on here shed a light?

[765489]

I've been shipping stuff for years as part of my work. Mostly small-ish stuff via couriers, but also heavier freight mainly to and from Europe, the US and occasionally Australia. Normally the company handling the shipments would also take care of customs clearance unless otherwise instructed.
All of a sudden, companies are requiring power of attorney forms to be filled out before they will clear goods through customs.

can any shipping experts on here shed a light?

This is related to Box 14 of the SAD - Status of Declarant / Representative and is to do with who pays the Customs debt in the event of a problem or dispute with Revenue. There are three options available for clearance brokers to input into this box

(a) Enter “1” if you are the Declarant – you as the importer/exporter are acting in your own name and on your own behalf. You are responsible for any customs debt that may arise as a consequence of the declaration.
(b) Enter “2” if you are the Direct Representative – you are acting in the name of and on behalf of the importer/exporter, whose details you supply in the declaration. The importer/exporter is responsible for any customs debt that may arise as a consequence of the declaration, provided you hold the necessary authorisation from the importer/exporter.
(c) Enter “3” if you are the Indirect Representative – you are acting in your own name but on behalf of the importer/exporter, whose details you supply in the declaration. You and the importer/exporter are jointly liable for any customs debt that may arise as a consequence of the declaration, provided you hold the necessary authorisation from the importer/exporter.

Most customs clearance companies will use option b - Direct Representative. This is why you are getting a power of attorney form. Traders / clearance brokers used to put in option 2 on the SAD without the importers knowledge, but this changed when Revenue issued a bulletin to the trade in which they said that you must have signed power of attorney forms on file for any SADs pulled for a Customs audit that have the value of 2 in box 14/1. Some companies were slow to take this up but if a Customs officer comes into your premises and wishes to see the power of attorney for an entry, and the trader does not have one on file for a particular importer, they could get fined for it...

The power of attorney form needs to be signed only once. Once the Clearance broker / trader has the signed form on file they can use that for subsequent declarations.

This is a Revenue driven thing and there is no electronic way of doing the power of attorney at present... which is a pain in the ass for clearance brokers / traders.

Edit - The Declarant in Box 14 is the person or company doing the actual clearance of the shipment. Also to say this is one of the processes that has everything slowed down for some companies doing clearances. The ones that are not doing it will eventually be punished for it by Revenue.

[tphase]

thanks for that, very helpful

[tphase]

a related question
do companies need to have a POA to clear intra-EU shipments (including those transiting through the UK)? I'd have thought since there's effectively no customs clearance, there should be no need