Intrastat simplifications
HMRC have released an impact assessment study which examined a number of options to reduce the amount of businesses required to submit Intrastat arrivals declarations.
This follows an amendment to the relevant EC regulation, adopted in March 2009, which reduced the percentage of arrivals information that is required to be captured by HMRC from 97% to 95%. HMRC have decided to mirror this change in the UK. It is expected that this will result in approximately 6,900 mainly small and medium sized UK businesses no longer being required to submit Intrastat arrivals declarations. This is out of a current total pool of approximately 33,500 businesses that are currently required to submit arrivals declarations.
It is expected that these changes will be implemented by HMRC from 1 January 2010 following the necessary changes to domestic UK Intrastat legislation. In due course a new HMRC brief will be published to highlight the revised exemption threshold below which no arrivals declarations will be required.