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Companies in the UK and EU would face “a significant new and ongoing administrative burden” if Britain were to crash out of the bloc, the assessment by HM Revenue & Customs warned. [...]
The estimate of the extra administrative costs to business in the event of no-deal contrasts with Mr Johnson‘s claim to the Conservative conference last week that the UK could save £1bn a month by leaving the EU on 31 October.
In its no-deal impact assessment, the British tax authority detailed the cost to business to complete all the paperwork for the 215m consignments of goods crossing between the UK and the EU, assuming trade remained at 2017 levels.
HMRC’s figures are likely to be on the low side as they did not include the additional costs of complying with new VAT procedures for services companies, which dominate the UK economy, or for new VAT rules that would apply to parcels following a no-deal Brexit. They also exclude the one-off costs businesses would incur in preparing to fill in customs declarations.
It is estimated that large companies importing and exporting in high volumes would face a cost of £28 for filling in the forms for each load imported and that this would take an employee 1hr 45mins on average. If the work was outsourced, HMRC estimates the cost would rise to £56 for each consignment, based on the average charges of freight forwarders. [...]
Full article on Financial Times (subscription requiried)
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