Earlier this year, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) published Customs Notice CN 15-002 “New Seizure Policy for Significant Undervaluation of Commercial Goods in the Courier Low Value Shipment (CLVS) Program”, announcing the implementation of a new seizure policy addressing significant undervaluation uncovered in this import stream.
The new seizure policy effectively targets those foreign exporters who significantly undervalue goods imported through the CLVS Program. Through targeted and random examination, the CBSA will verify untrue statements and where physical evidence exists, seizure action may be taken under the exporter’s name. When a seizure action is undertaken, the Canadian importers will be provided with the Notice of Seizure informing them of their right to make a third-party claim.
CBSA has provided a statistical report on CLVS shipments held for examination and their findings.
Summary Statistics on the examinations of shipments under the CLVS, for fiscal year (FY) 2013-2014:
Over 37.5 million CLVS shipments were reported for FY 2013-14; these are divided into 2 categories:
Category 1 = under $20.00
Category 2 = $20 to $2,500
- The numbers of Category 2 shipments, 25,654,639, were more than twice those of Category 1 (11,874,176). A total of 37,528,815 shipments were reported under the CLVS program.
- Of the 37,528,815 CLVS shipments, 772,596 or 2.06% were examined for assessing compliance.
- Examinations resulted in 58, 974 Y50 rejection notices.
Y50 rejection notices are categorized by type of identified error, which include the following:
- CHANGE $ 0-20: selected when valued at $20 or less on the cargo report but determined to be over $20;
- CHANGE $ 20-2500: selected when valued between $20 and $2500 on the cargo report but determined to be over $2500;
- OGD: selected when OGD goods inadmissible for the CLVS stream are identified;
- OTHER: selected when exam reveals something other than those identified above.
Notably, the CBSA issued 7,790 Y50 rejection notices relating to OGD goods; and it issued 13, 515 Y50s as a result of undervaluation, where the total declared value of $799,784 should have been declared at $13,530,283, resulting in an undervalued amount of $12,730,499. For FY 2014-2015, 137 instances of undervaluation were deemed as significant ($10,000 or more).
The CBSA is currently not in a position to release specific information on the penalties that have been issued since its implementation. For further reference, consult Customs Notice CN 15-002.