EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

Tariff Concession Revocation Instrument 49/2007

Customs Act 1901

Background

Part XVA of the Customs Act 1901 (the Act) sets out a scheme under which Tariff Concession Orders (TCOs) may be made and revoked by the Chief Executive Officer of Customs (the CEO).  A lower rate of customs duty applies to goods that are the subject of a TCO. 

Under sections 269C and 269P of the Act, a TCO will be made if the application for the TCO meets the core criteria, that is, on the day on which the application was lodged, no substitutable goods were produced in Australia in the ordinary course of business.

Section 269SB of the Act provides, in part, that a person claiming to be a producer in Australia of substitutable goods in relation to the goods covered by a TCO may request the CEO to revoke the TCO.

Under subsection 269SC(1) of the Act, the CEO must decide whether of not her or she is satisfied:

−               that, on the day of lodgement of the request, the person requesting the revocation of the TCO is a producer in Australia of goods that are substitutable goods in relation to the goods the subject of the TCO;

−               that, if the TCO were not in force on that day but that day were the day on which the application for that TCO was lodged, the CEO would not have made the TCO.

If the CEO is satisfied of those matters but is also satisfied that a narrower TCO could have been made on the day the request to revoke was lodged, the TCO must revoke the TCO and make, in its place, such a narrower TCO (subsection 269SC(4) refers).

Mark Sensing (Australia) Pty Ltd requested that the CEO revoke TCO 0506934 which covers thermal imaging paper.

Instrument

Tariff Concession Instrument No 49/2007 was made on 16 March 2007.  It revokes TCO 0506934 and remakes a narrower TCO 0704053 covering thermal imaging paper as the CEO is satisfied that he or she would not have made the old TCO but could have made the narrower TCO.

Consultation

Subsection 269SC(1A) of the Act provides that as soon as practicable after receiving a request for revocation of a TCO, the CEO must publish in a Gazette a notice which includes a statement that a request has been lodged and the full particulars of the TCO to which the request relates.

Commencement

Subsection 269SC(6) provides that an order revoking a TCO comes into force on the day on which the request to revoke the TCO was lodged. 

Subsection 269SC(7) provides that if a narrower TCO is made in place of another TCO, that narrower TCO comes into force from the date of effect of the revocation of the other TCO.

Subsection 239SD(8) provides that subsections 269SC(6) and 269SC(7) have effect despite section 12 of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.  Section 12 prohibits the making of certain retrospective legislative instruments.

Tariff Concession Instrument No 49/2007 revoked 0506934 and made the narrower TCO No. 0704053 on 16 March 2007.