Enforcement of Intrastat declarations
Every EU member state collects and processes information on the trade in goods between EU countries. This is often the country’s statistical office. In the Netherlands this is the CBS but a separate entity is also used to gather this information, such as the Ministry of Finance. In spite of the opening of the borders within Europe in 1993, it is still necessary to know what, when and how many goods are transported within the EU. This data is gathered on the basis of Intrastat declarations.
Companies in the EU are required to submit the Intrastat declarations when the value of the goods transport exceeds a certain threshold. These thresholds ensure that companies established in Luxembourg are required to report Intrastat when they exceed € 150,000 for purchases as well as deliveries. Companies in the Netherlands are not required to submit an Intrastat report until they have exceeded the threshold of € 900,000 for deliveries and € 900,000 for purchases.
Companies exceeding the threshold receive a letter from the statistical office requesting that they submit an Intrastat declaration. One often sees that multinationals with branches in several countries are required to satisfy these conditions, making it very complex. In addition, small organizations often do not have sufficient knowledge or time to satisfy this administrative burden. As a result, these organizations are confronted with the enforcement of a statistical requirement. Every EU member state has a separate department for enforcement within the CBS. This department was created to ensure that companies which have neglected to submit Intrastat declarations ultimately do this. If these requests are still not complied with, enforcement progresses to the imposing of fines, also known as penalty payments. Like the amount of the threshold, the amount of the penalties is also determined by the relevant EU member state itself. Ireland, for example, has a penalty system in place whereby an initial penalty of € 1265 is charged, and for each day that the Intrastat declarations are not filed, the company is fined an additional € 60. Companies in the Netherlands pay a daily amount varying from € 25 to € 1,000. In exceptional cases, the penalty in the Netherlands can be raised as high as € 500,000. In Great Britain, the failure to submit Intrastat declarations can, in theory, even lead to legal proceedings. Penalties such as € 500,000 in the Netherlands and legal proceedings in Great Britain are often a last resort, and rarely if ever occur in actual practice. Nonetheless, the CBS is placing an increasing amount of emphasis on the prompt submission of Intrastat declarations. The supervision of this will become even stricter in the years to come, and it is expected that large penalties will also soon materialize.
This is why many companies are in search of solutions for the continued failure to satisfy this administrative requirement. This is a solution that Pincvision offers. Pincvision takes over the entire Intrastat process for you. From identifying logistical flows within the company to the ultimate submission of the declarations. Pincvision ensures, together with the client, that the declarations are complete, and that everything satisfies the requirements so that you do not encounter any unnecessary delays. Thanks to the large quantity of declarations Pincvision handles for third parties within the EU, we have better than excellent relationships with various statistical bureaus, thus meaning that there is little to no chance that companies will face enforcement measures.
Thomas Wijnberg
Senior Data Analyst
