Supreme Administrative Court denies customs duty refund due to late filing
The deadline for applying for a customs duty refund is fixed. This was confirmed by a recent judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC), reminding importers that, in the event of disputes with suppliers, they must act in time.
The case concerned a company that imported specialised machinery. After the delivery, the company found that the machines were defective. The company therefore lodged a complaint and subsequently dealt with the matter through arbitration proceedings with the supplier. Only after those proceedings had ended – approximately three years after the machines had been delivered – did the company return them and apply for a refund of the customs duty it had paid on the import.
The customs office rejected the application for customs duty refund, and the General Directorate of Customs reached the same conclusion. The main reason was that the application had been filed late. The Customs Code provides that an application for customs duty refund must be filed within one year from the moment the company is notified of the amount of customs duty it should pay. The company argued that, due to the complexity of the dispute and the COVID-19 pandemic, it had not been possible to file the application earlier.
The SAC confirmed that the deadline for filing an application for customs duty refund is fixed and starts to run on the date on which the customs debt is notified. According to the court, neither complex customer complaint proceedings nor the pandemic can justify an extension of the deadline. The court emphasised that businesses must take this deadline into account and act in a timely manner, even where their dispute with the supplier has not yet been resolved.
The court also pointed out that the rules for customs duty refunds differ from the rules governing VAT or excise duty refunds. In the case of customs duty, it is crucial to act quickly and inform the customs office as soon as a problem with the goods arises (such as the goods being found defective).
The court therefore dismissed the company’s action and confirmed that if an importer misses the statutory deadline, it can no longer apply for a customs duty refund. The judgment is an important reminder for all importers that, in situations like that, they should act without delays and assert their claims in a timely manner: i.e. file an application for customs duty refund within one year of being notified of the customs debt.