A consultation has been published seeking the views of businesses required to submit Intrastat declarations and users of trade data on proposals to simplify the Intrastat system. The closing date for comments is 8 April 2014.

The UK and other Member States have been in discussion with EU Commission regarding proposals to modernise the Intrastat system with a proposal to modernise the Intrastat system targeted for implementation from 2017.

To offer a more immediate simplification, during 2013 HMRC informally consulted with businesses required to submit Intrastat declarations and users of Intrastat data on a proposal to reduce the coverage of trade on which data must be collected by the Intrastat system for arrivals from 95% to 93%. The UK, along with other Member States, worked with the EU Commission to deliver this change and as a consequence the EU legislation was amended resulting in an increase to the Intrastat Exemption Threshold for arrivals from £600,000 to £1,200,000 from 1 January 2014.

This consultation seeks views on the key part of the Eurostat proposal, known as SIMSTAT (Single Market Statistics). This is a mandatory data exchange between Member States enabling use of another’s dispatch (EU exports) data to compile their own arrival (EU import) figures.