Claim duty refund from Germany Customs

[Debs Toohey]

Hi, I am trying to claim a refund on goods shipped to a retailer in Berlin where we paid the duty on arrival on the retailers behalf and the goods were returned so I want to get a refund of course ;-D

All export and reimport landing documents are available, I have emailed German customs office concerned but am just going round in circles, suggested forms including the 0223 have been submitted with no avail.

Anyone know any simple way to sort this out - please?

 

[IanSuth]

@Customs Geek one for you ?

 

[Deleted member 351022]

I can’t provide specific advice on German customs forms and procedures.
I can tell you about EU customs rules which the German authorities apply strictly.

There are very specific procedures in place regarding refunds of duty when goods are returned. Duties can only be refunded under specific circumstances such as faulty goods or goods being sent for repair. In both cases this normally needs to be applied for prior to the reexport.
There is no automatic right for a refund on goods not remaining in the EU.

There are also set rules on who the legal customs debtor is and who is entitled to reclaim duties. You also mention that you have paid the duties on your customers behalf so it is likely that you are not the named importer.
If that is the case there is nothing in EU legislation that would let anyone other than the importer to make a direct duty claim on an import.
It may be that your customer should try and make the claim and you sort things out between you.

 

[Debs Toohey]

thank you for your help Ian and customs geek, I am in contact with the main customs office and federal tax office who are helping my application. I can confirm that the goods were ship to the customers, duty paid by ourselves then subsequently returned where no import duty was applied coming back to the UK.

 

[AdamCD]

I would be very interest to hear how you get on with this. I have always been told that those duties are not recoverable when we ship DDP. The only way would be to ship DAP and have the customer pay the duties and reclaim them if they return them as it would be their own country. But retail customers are not going to want to do that.
So I'm looking for solutions to this myself.

 

[Debs Toohey]

I am not having much success with it but am persevering so if I do get any further I will let you know. Position to date is I am registered online customs portal with email access only and have been advised to gain registration on Elster system which I tired previously in writing, submitted postal application signed by myself who is a Director however it was not approved because I was not the owner/director which my husband is so may try to submit again..... its exhausting process. I am tryign the same in the USA and have been told that I need to hire an approved broker to do this for me, there is a way to file yourself however the security checks required in terms of electronic data transfer are endless, take around 6 months to clear so I am currently weighing up if it will be worth me hiring a broker or not and next step is to see if that broker service is also something I can locate in Germany should my resubmission of Elster application not be approved.

 

[Deleted member 351022]

The USA requires that an accredited customs broker deals with customs matters. The brokers all need to pass exams and be approved. They have a system where customs declarations are not finalised until well after the import . This is called liquidation.
On the plus side, unlike the UK and EU they do have a drawback system to reclaim duty for goods that are reexported. Again these are usually administered by specialist brokers.