Earlier this month, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) released an information update on Advance Commercial Information (ACI) compliance to industry. The document outlines CBSA’s introduction of eManifest, the third phase of the ACI program, and the new penalties for non-compliance.
The Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS) sets out the penalties for non-compliance with the Customs Act, Customs Tariff and regulations under these acts. Additional background on AMPS was summarized in a Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) board report sent out earlier this month. The note on AMPS is included below for your reference.
A letter will be sent to individual carriers and their company contacts most at risk for non-compliance or ACI contraventions. These letters will outline the AMPS penalty system, the number of instances of non-compliance for the carrier and an offer from CBSA to assist these carriers in correcting their issues. CBSA strongly encourages these carriers to respond to these offers of assistance to take corrective action.
CBSA states that compliance in the industry remains extremely high, with a fairly limited number of repeat offenders and a very low error rate overall. CBSA estimates that non-compliance issues impact less than 1% of shipments currently crossing the border.
CBSA is committed to continuing to work with carriers to analyze and monitor AMPS penalties moving forward. CBSA has also indicated a willingness to explore additional data collection methods and the sharing of information between government and industry. This could potentially include developing a system to mitigate penalties based on exposure, program modelling, trusted trader membership and other possible metrics.
The CTA and CBSA have agreed to work together, with the goal of improving government-industry communication. Part of this process could include the implementation of systems to ensure that relevant company contacts are receiving AMPS penalty information in a timely manner. This would allow additional notice to carriers as penalties are assessed, giving them the ability to take corrective action as deemed necessary.
CBSA has offered to conduct a webinar to CTA membership on AMPS in advance of November 1, 2016, when the AMPS program will take effect. This will allow carriers to learn more about the AMPS process and compliance issues and to give additional feedback to government.
CTA will be distributing webinar information to membership in the coming weeks. For more information please contact lak.shoan@184.107.41.75