MIL OSI Translation. Canadian French to English –
Source: Government of Canada – in French
April 19, 2024
Ottawa, Ontario – Today, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) provided an update on its plans to launch the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management (CBAM) digital initiative, which will modernize the collection of duties and taxes on goods imported into Canada.
The GCRA will be launched internally at the CBSA on May 13, as planned, to advance its compliance and enforcement efforts. However, due to the strike vote activity currently underway by the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the possible impact on Agency operations in the event of a positive strike vote, the CBSA has decided to postpone the launch of the system for trade chain partners until October 2024. The Agency will thus be able to support them when they start using the GCRA. So, until the fall, the trading channel partners will continue to operate as they do now.
The GCRA is ready for deployment. However, the support of CBSA employees is essential to the success of its implementation. By postponing its launch, the Agency is giving industry partners every chance of success. Given the linkages between CARM and other CBSA and Canada Revenue Agency operational core systems, the next anticipated window for migrating significant IT changes is October 2024.
The CBSA hosted approximately 100 consultation sessions and technical working groups, over 160 direct participation events, and completed multiple testing cycles, including over 10 months of simulation with direct participation of CBSA employees. CBSA and industry. The latter has been working to be ready for launch, with approximately 71,500 importers now registered in the GCRA system – these importers represent more than 92% of the volume of imported goods.
In addition to protecting and increasing revenues of $40 billion per year for Canadians, the GCRA will provide many other benefits:
eliminate cumbersome, time-consuming paper-based processes; provide better tools that will allow the CBSA to focus its compliance and enforcement efforts on potential bad actors; improve functionality for importers by allowing them to enroll in trade programs, submit accounting documents and receive notifications through their GCRA Customer Portal account.
The internal launch of the GCRA at the CBSA starting May 13 will allow the Agency to advance work towards achieving the expected benefits of improved compliance. The CBSA will use the GCRA to identify errors and discrepancies in duty and tax reporting, and will begin working with industry in these areas. These efforts follow a study by the Auditor General of Canada which estimated that up to 20% of goods entering Canada were misclassified, resulting in a reduction in the amount of duties paid.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
