Customs to refund €1.5m duties paid extra due to currency error

The Finnish Customs will refund an amount of about 1.5 million euro paid as excess duties due to the wrong currency rates in customs clearances for some currencies during the period of 1 May 2016 to 30 June 2019.

In accordance with EU legislation, Customs refunds any excess payments automatically, if the refund amount is 10 euro or more, said Customs in a press release on Wednesday, adding that clients may apply also for smaller sums to be refunded.

Finnish Customs has erroneously used selling rates laid down by a Finnish bank in connection with currencies, whose conversion into euro should have been carried out by using rates laid down by the European Central Bank.

This concerns customs clearances whose tax determination date has been confirmed during the period of 1 May 2016 to 30 June 2019. The erroneously converted currencies include, inter alia, the Russian rouble, the Swedish krona, and the US dollar.

Because of the error, the customs and value-added-tax (VAT) value of goods, which were used as the basis for import duties was confirmed as 1.5-2.5% higher than the right one.

The error affects about 960,000 customs declarations.

The Customs apologised for the error being happening in customs work.

After having realised the mistake, Customs has immediately begun to apply the rates laid down by the European Central Bank in customs clearances whose tax determination date is 1 July 2019 or a date after that date, and to gather information for the purpose of refunding.