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HM Revenue & Customs made two announcements relating to Intrastat yesterday.

Intrastat is a pan-European system for compiling statistical data about the movement of goods around the EU. UK businesses have to report both 'arrivals' of goods from other EU countries and 'dispatches' to other EU countries - but only when the level of such movements reaches a certain threshold. (Up to £600,000 in a calendar year for Arrivals to the UK; £250,000 a calendar year for dispatches from the UK - these figures for 2011).

The first announcement is that businesses will have to make their monthly Declarations online from April 2012 - the paper option will be removed.

Mandatory Electronic Submission of Electronic Declarations

The second announcement is that the deadline for submitting the monthly Declarations will be brought forwards, from the 'end of the month following', to the '21st of the month following' - again, from April next year.

Revised Due Dates for Submission of Intrastat Declarations

It is perhaps interesting that the corresponding "Tax Information and Impact Notes" or "TIINs" consider that there will be no cost but a 'benefit' to businesses from forcing them to file online instead of using paper forms; likewise that the cost to businesses of cutting the reporting timeframe by about 1/3rd will have 'negligible impact'. It seems more logical instead to infer that if a business were to think it beneficial to be reporting online, it would already be doing so; likewise that getting far less time to fill in a form would be of more than negligible consequence!