Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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CUSTOMS AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2004 (NO. 4) 2004 NO. 258

Subsection 270(1) of the Customs Act 1901 (the Act) provides in part that the Governor-General may make regulations not inconsistent with the Act prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed for giving effect to the Act or as may be necessary or convenient to be prescribed for giving effect to this Act or for the conduct of any business relating to the Customs.

The purpose of the amending Regulations is to amend the Customs Regulations 1926 (the Principal Regulations) to prescribe the meaning of 'alcoholic beverage' for the purpose of new section 153AA of the Act.

The Customs Legislation Amendment (Application of International Trade Modernisation and Other Measures) Act 2004 received the Royal Assent on 25 March 2004. Item 17 of Schedule 2 to that Act inserted Division 1AA of Part VIII to the Act. The new Division includes section 153AA.

The provisions of Division 1AA of Part VIII of the Act relate to the determination of the duty payable on an imported alcoholic beverage in circumstances where the alcohol content stated on the beverage's label exceeds the actual alcohol content of the beverage. The new Division also sets out the methods to determine the actual alcohol content of alcoholic beverages. These provisions mirror sections 77FA and 77FB of the Excise Act 1901. For the purposes of Division 1AA, section 153AA states that 'alcoholic beverage' has the meaning given by the regulations.

The amending Regulations insert new regulation 107C into the Principal Regulations to define 'alcoholic beverage' to mean a good that is classified in heading 2203, 2204, 2205, 2206 or 2208 of Schedule 3 to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 (the Customs Tariff). These headings respectively cover the following goods:

(a)       beer made from malt;

(b)       wine of fresh grapes, including fortified wines, and grape must (unfermented grape juice for wine-making);

(c)       vermouth and other wine of fresh grapes flavoured with plants or aromatic substances;

(d)       other fermented beverages (for example, cider, perry, mead), mixtures of fermented beverages and mixtures of fermented beverages and non-alcoholic beverages; and

(e)       undenatured ethyl alcohol of an alcoholic strength by volume of less than 80% volume, spirits, liqueurs and other spirituous beverages.

Inserting the definition makes the assessment of the duty payable on imported alcoholic beverages, where the labelled alcoholic content exceeds the actual alcoholic content, consistent with the assessment of the excise duty payable on domestically produced alcoholic beverages in the same circumstances.

The amending Regulations commenced on the date of their notification in the Gazette.

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