Officers And Their Powers

There are about 22,000 Customs & Excise Officers currently involved in day to day control. Not all staff are visiting grades but those who perform visits have considerable authority and power - though not limitless. It is to the advantage of those who may have to deal with such people to have some idea of how far reaching or limited the Officer’s authority is.

Historical

Customs & Excise have a long history despite only being one Department since 1909, when the Excise Department was transferred to the Board of Customs from the Inland Revenue.

A reference to "the ancient and rightful Customs" was contained in the Magna Carta and the history of Customs is littered with bloodthirsty tales of battles between the Customs men and the smugglers, who were not the romantic figures some would have us believe.

The Commissioners powers undoubtedly follow from the Department’s previous history but the powers are still there and available for the administration and collection of more ‘gentlemanly’ taxes such as VAT IPT and APD.

The Commissioners are appointed under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom and under the Customs & Excise Management Act 1979, commission officers to discharge their duties.

It is important to remember that a VAT or excise control officer is no more or less of a Customs officer than the one who searches your baggage at Manchester Airport or who you watched in action in the TV programme "The Revenue Men".

Identification

All Customs officers carry an official identification card, showing their photograph and signature. As a precaution you should always ask to see it and if you are in any doubt call the local VAT or other Customs office.

Organisation

The Customs & Excise HQ are situated in New Kings Beam House, London.

The responsibility for the organisation of the Department is under the control of Administration and Policy Divisions for all Customs matters including VAT.

The Customs areas in the United Kingdom are defined as Collections under the control of a Collector who is answerable to the Board for the enforcement of the Commissioners powers within his operating unit.

A VAT local office for instance, will be headed by an Assistant Collector and will contain a section dealing with VAT registration, and an enforcement section involved with the collection of overdue VAT and penalties.

The visiting officers will be sub divided into Districts under the control of a Surveyor. The visiting officers themselves are designated as Senior Officers and Officers, and they will be the officials you are likely to be dealing with on VAT control visits.

Each VAT office has an investigation team that will investigate straightforward fraud.

More serious fraud within a Collection boundary will be dealt with by the Collections Investigation Unit who are more highly trained and involved full time on Customs and VAT investigations.

Should fraud go beyond Collection boundaries or be of a complex or serious nature it will be dealt with by the HQ Investigation Division.

The Investigation Division is mainly situated in London but sub Divisions are located in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester. Officers are also located in other countries.

These offices will also be involved in investigating drug importation and other Customs offences.

Customs have announced that the Investigation Division and the Collection Investigation Units are to merge and that greater resource is to be input to investigation and intelligence gathering work.

Training

The initial training of a VAT officer is over a 12 month period and involves attending lectures on how VAT works including the study of the relevant legislation.

The desk training is interspersed by accompanying specially selected practical trainers on VAT control visits. In the later stages of his training period the trainee will take the lead in the carrying out of the visit and eventually undertake solo visits before being allocated to a control district.

Unfortunately, due to the pressure to clear cases quickly, the training is not as thorough as it should be and control officers are given little encouragement to study in depth the legislation relating to VAT. Consequently decisions are SOMETIMES reached purely by reference to the guidance in the public notices which does not necessarily address itself to the letter of the law.

It is always advisable to consider these points when reviewing any assessment or penalty raised by the visiting officers.

The training of full time investigation officers is on the other hand very specialised and a high level of understanding of the law is required.

However, it is not unknown for them to overstep the mark in relation to their powers and they may often try to bluff their way into getting the information or result they desire.