Tollit a Norwegian declaration service

Tollit decides to challenge 40 years of custom clearances procedures

Tollit represents the missing link in a complete self-service solution in the chain for importing goods; payment -tracking – declaration, performed by the consumer himself, on all available platforms, available at any time.

New regulation in Norway paved way for immediate action to mitigate the market effects in Norway pending the removal of the VAT exemption of small consignments. 

In short the new Norwegian regulation effects foreign sellers and electronic interfaces as they are liable to pay Norwegian VAT when selling small consignments to Norwegian consumers. If a seller uses an electronic marketplace, the marketplace will be the “deemed supplier” according to the proposed changes in our VAT legislation. The proposed VOEC-scheme is restricted to sales of low value goods, low value means: – Goods valued between NOK 0 – 3,000 (EUR 0 – 300, USD 0 – 344). – The threshold is calculated exclusive of shipping and insurance costs.

The VOEC-scheme includes all goods, except: – Tobacco products – Alcoholic beverages – Other restricted or illegal goods according to Norwegian law – Foodstuffs – (any goods meant for human consumption)

Consignments that are not eligible to VOEC, and or are excluded from the transitional arrangement, must be cleared according to normal customs procedure. This entails an increased cost to the consumer in the form of customs clearance fees from freight forwarders who handle the movement of goods and clearance to the customs service in Norway.

From 1 April 2020, online shops and online marketplaces are obligated to collect Norwegian value-added tax under the VOEC scheme. Since not all businesses were registered in the VOEC scheme from 1 April, a temporary customs declaration exemption was therefore introduced. From 1 April shipments with a value between NOK 0 and NOK 350 that are arriving from online shops, online marketplaces or other sellers that are not registered in the VOEC scheme are still exempt from ordinary declaration procedures. This means that the NOK 350 limit remains in effect for such shipments until the Norwegian Ministry of Finance decides to abolish it entirely.

Importing a “food stuff”, (Vitamins, etc.) with a value of NOK 300 will be subject to VAT/Toll and a customs clearance fee of NOK 299 (Posten Norway surcharge). This gives a new price of NOK 599 for the consignment, which corresponds to a price increase of 99,67 %. Some couriers have even higher rates depending on the amount of items in the shipment.

Tollit presumed that this would have tremendous effect on market access for these netshops and decided to tackle the challenge.

Tollit wanted to contribute to the establishment of a secure, efficient, future-oriented technological solution for customs clearance when importing goods from abroad that reduced transaction costs. Tollit had a clear and distinct goal to support the customs service’s digital strategy of making “it easy to do right”.  

Tollit aims to offer a service that is largely differentiated from established players. The way the market is organized today, the couriers only deliver the service within their customer base, in contrast to Tollit whom work towards facilitating the declaration process regardless of courier handing the shipment B2C.

It’s time to facilitate an easy process using high end technology and intuitiv data processing.

Our solution is beneficial and secure for all parties involved !

We are more then happy to enter into negotiations and help your company to avoid significant drop in sales in the market. Also, we believe the Tollit.App it is very beneficial towards the consumer, enabling freedom of choice.

Tollit at the forefront of technology development

Tollit`s goal is to always be at the forefront of technology development to ensure the customer the very best products in relation to declaration handling.

Freight forwarding companies are incurring the high cost of trade due to the rising requirement for HS coding in fast freight parcels.This may results in errors and frauds in tariff and customs duties, delays in clearances, poor forecasting by traders, poor risk management by customs, and reduced efficiency of global trade. Delay/error in clearances not only cause huge financial loss but also disrupts essential supply chains where fast goods movement is critical for human survival as observed in the current pandemic of the corona.

Hence there is a need for a solution that allows for faster, accurate, automatic, and transparent identification of goods at border control in line with regulatory compliances. Tollit intend to develop an AI-powered toolbox by connecting classification standards to enhance control and enforcement efficiency in cross border trade.

This results in the need for machine learning–based algorithms and to build artificial intelligence to overcome these challenges.

Our development of a tool based on AI functionality would allow for transparent, automatic, and accurate classifications to assist all stakeholders including border agencies, exporters, etc.  

Such a tool will allow border agencies to charge duties and taxes consummate with product type, manage risk efficiently, prevent banned and counterfeit goods trade. Similarly, automation results in reduced costs and time delays, better planning and forecasting, simplification of the process, and thus higher efficiency of the entire system.  

GS1 Norway finds the product very promising and has decided to collaborate with Tollit in a pre-project as an input provider on an NPO basis. We have also roped in Smart Innovation Norway as an R & D institution.

Summarizing some of the benefits of using Tollit

Tollit also helps to reduce environmental consequences by the solution establishing secure and correct information to the consumer at an early stage, which in turn will help to reduce the number of expected returns associated with the regulatory changes.

Since March 2019, Tollit has had an ongoing dialogue with the authorites to obtain permission to establish a self-declaration service. Tollit continues its work with this to contribute to a solution that`s highly beneficial to consumers.

Tollit summarizes the following benefits of a customs clearance solution when using the mobile application:

• Easy and fast information flow from foreign suppliers
• Simplified and understandable, as well as more easily accessible information
• User-friendly interface for early information exchange
• Fast transfers regarding establishment of current electronic payment solutions
• Securing and storing electronic documentation for completed customs clearance

In March 2020, Tollit received grants from Innovation Norway for the development of the tollit.app, which has made a significant contribution to the realization of the technical solutions.