HMRC have published their latest letter to UK businesses that trade only with the EU with details of important actions they need to take and changes to be aware of in the
event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal. It is their third letter to businesses on preparing for the UK leaving the EU.
The letter asks businesses to take a number of actions to prepare for no deal. These include:
• Registering for an Economic Operator Registration and Identification (EORI) number on GOV.UK
• Deciding if they want to hire customs agent to make import and/or export declarations for them, or if they want to make declarations themselves using relevant software
• Registering for Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP), which is a new process to make importing easier than it otherwise would be for the initial period after the UK leaves the EU, should there be no deal.
There are also important updates on the way businesses trading with the EU pay import VAT and use EU VAT IT systems if we leave with no deal.
These changes do not apply to trade across the Northern Ireland-Ireland land border. HMRC will set out information about the arrangements for trading with Ireland as soon as they can.
To support the letter HMRC have published new guides on GOV.UK on:
• Customs Procedures
• Moving goods to and from the UK section continues
• Registering for simplified import procedures
• VAT IT Systems rules and processes.
The guides provide further information explaining what these changes mean for UK businesses that trade with the EU and will be of use to help familiarise yourself with the latest changes. You can find all of the guides published to support the latest letter and the previous letters issued in December and Septembers last year on the Trading with the EU if the UK leaves without a deal page on GOV.UK.
HMRC have also published a ‘Prepare your business for the UK leaving the EU’ tool on GOV.UK to help all UK businesses:
• find out what they need to do to prepare for the UK leaving the EU
• what’s changing in their industry
• information on specific rules and regulations.
All businesses need to do is answer 7 simple questions to get guidance relevant to them and their sector. You can access the tool at Prepare your business for the UK
leaving the EU.
HMRC have also released new step by step videos to help businesses understand the key changes they’ll need to make to continue importing and exporting goods with the
EU in a no deal scenario. You can watch Importing goods from the EU in a no deal EU Exit and Exporting goods from the EU in a no deal EU Exit on the HMRC YouTube channel.
