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Officials of the Da Nang Port Customs Branch inspect imported goods. Photo: N.Linh

Accepting many opinions

Agreeing with the contents of the draft amendments and supplements to the decree and circular by the General Department of Customs this time, the Southern Customs Departments highly appreciated the Drafting Committee (General Department of Customs) for accepting some of the comments from these units, and at the same time contributing many specific contents.

One of the contents of this amendment will facilitate both customs and enterprises, which is supplementary declaration. However, based on local reality, some customs units believe that in order to ensure management as well as facilitate enterprises, it is necessary to add some appropriate contents.

According to customs units, the current situation of enterprises importing goods as raw materials and supplies for processing and manufacturing export goods that result in excess or shortage of goods is common. In cases of excess or shortage with small quantities (valued under 10 million VND, according to Article 8 of Decree No. 128/2020/ND-CP, which stipulates no penalty), it is necessary to classify according to a number of simple procedural cases so that enterprises can proactively declare amendments and supplements to match the actual imported quantity.

If according to the content of the draft amendment, the entire dossier must be transferred for post-clearance inspection, the post-clearance workload of the Customs authority is very large. From this reality, the representative of Dong Nai Customs Department proposed that it should be stipulated that cases where enterprises declare amendments and supplements are one of the criteria for the Customs authority to collect information to check the situation of using raw materials and supplies or check the settlement report or conduct post-clearance inspection.

Agreeing with the above opinions, the representative of Binh Phuoc Customs Department proposed that in Article 20 (Circular 38) regulating the declaration of additional customs dossiers for exported and imported goods, it is proposed to add cases allowing additional declarations after customs clearance for goods that are not subject to a license and are exported and imported goods with agreements on tolerances and quantities. According to the explanation of Binh Phuoc Customs Department, in practice, customs clearance procedures for goods in the area often arise for specific agricultural products (cashew nuts) with excess differences after having the results of a third party's appraisal. If the enterprise corrects the declaration during customs clearance, it will incur administrative penalties, affecting the enterprise's compliance with the law. Meanwhile, due to the nature of the goods, imported agricultural products often have differences in quantity compared to reality. In addition, regarding the draft Circular 38 on tax payment deadlines for some special cases (stipulated in Article 42), Binh Duong Customs Department proposed to supplement regulations for cases where goods are raw agricultural products, seafood, imported food in the form of processing, SXXK that have exceeded the production cycle of 6 months from the date of import of raw materials but are not exported to avoid enterprises taking advantage of dispersing, selling raw materials domestically and absconding.

Similarly, regarding the responsibility of organizations and individuals in notifying processing, reprocessing facilities, and production facilities (CSSX) of exported goods; Regarding the place of storage of raw materials, supplies, machinery, equipment, and export products (CSX notification) prescribed in Article 56 (Circular 38), Binh Duong Customs Department proposes to add point a.9, clause 1: "CSX notification according to the information criteria prescribed in Form No. 20, Appendix II issued with this Circular to the customs branch that is monitoring and managing. It clearly states the plan and time to prepare for temporary suspension or cessation of operations (with specific reasons) 30 days before the date of temporary suspension or cessation of operations". The reason for adding the above regulation is to increase responsibility as well as sanctions for enterprises. Thereby, helping the Customs authority to be more proactive in grasping information about enterprises showing signs of abnormality in production cycles as well as business operations, and proactive in handling cases of enterprises showing signs of absconding or missing...

Customs declarants must have certificates

At the conference, local customs units proposed that there should be specific regulations to strictly manage customs clearance staff who are not customs clearance agents. It is recommended that these declarants must be granted practice certificates and codes to perform...

Giving evidence, Mr. Do Thanh Phong, Head of the Customs Management and Supervision Department (Binh Duong Customs Department) said that in Binh Duong, there are more than 30 customs clearance agents certified by the General Department of Customs, but the number of enterprises providing customs clearance services is up to 5 times this number. Mr. Phong said that customs declaration enterprises use digital signatures of import-export enterprises to provide declaration services, but there are no sanctions to manage these subjects. There needs to be a legal framework, and declaration staff or agent staff must have customs declaration certificates. "Regulations on certificates and degrees are to bind and enhance the responsibility of customs declarants in declaring and carrying out customs procedures" - Mr. Do Thanh Phong emphasized.

Based on the above reality, the representative of Binh Duong Customs Department proposed that in Article 5 (Decree 08), a provision on customs declarants should be added: Customs declarants must have a customs declaration certificate.

Sharing this view, Mr. Phan Binh Tuy, Deputy Head of the Customs Sub-Department of Tan Son Nhat International Airport (Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department) said that customs declarants must have a customs declaration practice certificate. Because when having a practice certificate, it proves that these employees have received basic training, will carry out customs procedures more professionally, and at the same time facilitate the management of competent authorities, especially when there are violations of customs laws...