Denmark, 20-21 March 2012
Report
At the invitation of the Director General of Denmark Customs, Erling Andersen, the Secretary General of the WCO, Kunio Mikuriya, participated in the Customs 2013 High Level Seminar on Compliance and Compliance Risk Management with the slogan “Doing more with less”. The Seminar was held in Copenhagen, Denmark on 20 and 21 March 2012, under the Danish Presidency of the European Union.
During the opening ceremony, the Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Danish Tax Administration and former Director General of Customs, Steffen Normann Hansen, the EC Director General of Taxation and Customs Union (TAXUD), Heinz Zourek, and Secretary General Mikuriya, shared their views on the seminar topic respectively from a national, EU and global Customs perspective.
The WCO Secretary General spoke about the Organization’s tools that support compliance.He focused on Authorized Economic Operators (AEOs), the Revenue Package including the importance of post-clearance audit and tackling the question of informal trade through a reduction in red-tape and bureaucracy, and the need to enhance integrity in Customs which would lead to good governance – an essential aspect to improving compliance.
In the group discussion, Secretary General Mikuriya stressed the importance of developing a compliance strategy for small and medium sized enterprises. Participants also listened to a speech by Thor Möger Pederson, Denmark’s Minister of Taxation. The meeting adopted the Copenhagen Declaration on Compliance and Compliance Risk Management.
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