Administrative Monetary Penalty System
C163

Contravention

Person who is required by subsection 40(3) of the Customs Act to keep records in respect of commercial goods failed to make the records available to the officer when requested.

Apply a penalty per written request for records basis.

Penalty

Occurrence Penalty
1st $300
2nd $450
3rd and subsequent $900
Penalty basis
Per written request
Retention period
36 months

Guidelines

Non-compliance occurs when an audit, verification or examination determines that the licensee of a duty free shop, sufferance warehouse or bonded warehouse, already determined to keep records and that records exist, does not make records available to an officer for review purposes.

Applied against the licensee (warehouse or DFS), certificate holder (duty deferral), courier or CSA importer.

Records can be made available on-site at the company premises or delivered directly to the place of work of the Senior Officer Trade Compliance.

The officer must exercise discretion when deciding how much time to allow the person to make records available. Thirty days may be considered reasonable as a minimum.

This contravention is subject to graduated penalties and is applied on a per request basis, which will be made in writing and may involve more than one record.

Typically, only one written request for records would be made per audit, verification or examination.

The first contravention is subject to a $300 penalty.

Subsequent written requests for records later determined not to have been kept or exist will be subject to the second and third level penalties.

Because the record(s) are not available for verification, no other record penalty can be assessed regarding the transaction(s) under review.

This is the only record penalty that can be applied to the transaction(s) under review.

If all records of an audit, verification or examination are not available for review, the officer may wish to reconsider whether the records actually exist, see C160.

References

Legislation

Customs Act, subsection 40(3)

D-Memo

D17-1-21, Maintenance of Records in Canada by Importers

Other

Imported Goods Records Regulations, section 3.1

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