Import & Export Regulations In The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) has long been a key player in the global import and export business, since the era of colonization. To service the needs of its citizens, SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises), and to facilitate trade, the UK imports a great deal of goods, FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), and machinery, whilst simultaneously exporting a great deal of precision goods such as, but not limited to, industrial machinery, motor vehicle parts, and pharmaceuticals.

Whilst many European Union (EU) members who are part of the European Single Market within the Schengen Area have scrapped physical borders across the single market by eliminating any form of border control, the UK does have a physical border with checkpoints to enforce border control, movement of goods and people, and apply customs on imports and exports. The responsibility of the enforceability of customs and duties on imports and exports in the UK rests on the shoulders of the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), which is a department of the UK government tasked with collecting taxes, payment of state support, and regulation of the national minimum wage.

The HMRC take an interest in imports and exports for a number of reasons, such as but not limited to, compiling trade statistics for the UK and the EU, ensuring a balance in trade figures for imports and exports so as to close the trade balance between the two figures, enacting strict policies on the prohibition of certain goods, and certainly for ensuring correct payments of any duties and/or value added tax.

This article will seek to lay out the legislation that binds importing and exporting procedures with regards to the United Kingdom. It will also analyze the various restrictions and caveats that arise when carrying out importing and exporting with the UK.

Regulations

The HMRC lays out all of its general information for importers and exporters in the document titled 'UK Trade Tariff: Volume 1', published on the 1 January 2009. The collection details topics such as, but not limited to, the following:

Value Added Tax (VAT); Suspensions; Duties; Reliefs; Prohibitions & Restrictions; and Other relevant rules and charges that may apply when importing or exporting from the UK. VAT

Value Added Tax, or VAT, is applicable on goods imported into (and exported out of) the UK, and is governed by the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (an act of Parliament (Westminster), particularly Section 15 to Section 17 of this statute, which details the charge to the tax applicable in the case of 'Imported Goods from Outside Member States' (i.e., outside the EU).The VAT is charged as though it is a custom duty, and provisions in the Community Customs Code (from the European Economic...