Australian Steel News – Industry Insider January 2021

January 2021

The Department of Home Affairs in conjunction with the Australian Border Force is seeing an uptake among importers and exporters of its Australian Trusted Trader program. The program is a voluntary partnership between
accredited businesses and the Australian Government (Border Force) with the aim to streamline and facilitate trade and enhance supply chain security.

Benefits to members continue to evolve, indeed members are encouraged to make suggestions on improvements to the program. The program offers certain benefits to importers which could be extremely helpful to their business in affecting cash flow and administrative work.

One of the benefits is Duty Deferral. Becoming a member allows you to arrange duty deferral, including any dumping duty, in a similar way to GST, allowing payments to occur after the goods have been imported. This could help businesses which usually may need to pay large amounts prior to cargo collection. Duty deferral allows extra time for the payment and thus may reduce interest payable and other financing costs.

Another benefit within the program is Origin Waiver. Australia has many Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and paying duty is not a huge burden for some businesses. However, the issue then arises of taking advantage of FTAs and ensuring you have the correct documentation (Free Trade Certificates) at the time of entry. Origin Waiver under the Trusted Trader program allows an accredited business to enter goods under an FTA without the need for a certificate. This does not apply to China FTAs at present, but may do so in the future.

Becoming a member of the Trusted Trader program is well worth considering. The website has a sub category which details additional benefits which may apply to your particular business.

Written by Simon Pepper
Director – Customs & Logistics

Published in Australian Steel News – Vol 4, Issue 5 – Jan 2021

We encourage our customers to become Trusted Traders and are happy to assist. To find our more about the application process please contact Simon Pepper – simon@sila.net.au.