CHIEF was one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated electronic services for managing customs declaration processes, but at nearly 25 years of age it can’t be easily adapted to new requirements.

The decision to replace CHIEF with CDS was made before the EU referendum, however CDS can be scaled to handle the increases in the volume of declarations made that have resulted from the UK’s exit from the EU, initial estimates of nearly 255 million declarations!

​

If you import or export goods outside the UK, your agent would have used CHIEF to process your paperwork, calculate & pay taxes due, all done electronically.

 

When CDS was introduced, the largest change was in the amount of information (data) that we required from businesses in relation to the declaration, this extra information is of paramount importance for preparing and submitting the correct information to HMRC and other government departments, if your agent is not asking you for this then beware, chances are your legal paperwork is not being completed correctly, the responsibility for this lays solely.