Inaccurate HMCR commodity codes costing British industry potentially millions of pounds, say leading freight forwarder

Careless and inaccurate use of HM Revenue & Customs commodity codes for imported goods is potentially costing UK businesses millions of pounds each year, according to a leading freight forwarder.

Purvinder Tesse, Logistics Director of West Midlands based FCL UK, says that a relatively small amount of time spent on researching the available codes and methods of obtaining exemptions on certain goods can pay major dividends in the form of cost savings on import duties.

"HMR&C produces an array of fat booklets detailing commodity codes with their respective duty rates every few months, but many companies have neither the time nor the inclination to go through these and see which of several categories the product they are importing might fall under.

They either keep using the code they have always used or call the HMR&C 'commodity code helpline' which will just give them one category number under which to register the goods.

"The fact remains, though, due to the enormous and ever-growing number of sub-headings which change every two or three months, that many goods can quite legitimately be registered under several categories, with significantly differing duty rates."

Currently, import duty is normally charged at a percentage of the value of the cargo, but Tesse warns that this money can never be reclaimed even if a mistake is later found out to have been made.