Changing the management of customs value in 2018

Professional activities at Thai Nguyen Customs Department, Bac Ninh Customs Department. Photo: T.Trang.

According to statistics of 2017, the Department of Import-Export Taxes has about 45 directives, fixing on price work; 661 lines of goods on the GTT02 (Taxable Value Data Management Program) for: automobile, truck, wine, sanitary ware, refrigerators, cosmetics, household electrical appliances… The regular guidance of the General Department of Customs has promptly pointed out the shortcomings and errors in the valuation of the local customs departments in order to give corrective measures timely, raise the sense of implementing the regulations on the value of civil servants and contribute to the increase of the tax payable to the State budget.

It can be seen that with this strict management, in 2017, the total amount of tax collected to the state budget due to consultations is about 736 billion VND, the total amount of tax increase due to the inspection of value is about 162 billion VND.

In addition, the General Department of Customs has issued more than 100 guiding documents regulating the responsibility of local customs departments and professional units under the General Department of Customs in providing information, offering amendment, revising the list and regulations of penalties for dealing with those who provide inaccurate information, question marks, consultations, post clearance audit, valuation, and updating unregulated data.

The above solutions have improved the efficiency of developing the value risks list of imported and exported goods and the attached reference prices, ensuring that the reference price is close to the actual price level supporting customs value inspection, and anti-trade fraud through price. The determination of disciplinary procedures for the identification of suspicious signs, customs valuation and improper updating of data improves the awareness of officials who carry out valuation work , contributing to the state budget increase.

Acknowledging the management of customs value declaration is an important customs management task to prevent low price declarations affecting the state budget revenue, The Director of the Department of Import-Export Taxes Mr Luu Manh Tuong said, and went on to say that in 2018, this effective way of value management in the previous year will be promoted. In addition, focusing on revising legal documents and implementing value management to improve the effectiveness of customs value management.

Specifically, the General Department of Customs will amend and supply the provisions of Decree 08/2015/ ND-CP and Circular 38/2001/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance as well as promulgating guiding documents to arrange local customs offices in accordance with regulations on inspection, identification of suspected signs, consultations, post clearance audit, building the value risks list of imported and exported goods and handling violations in price management.

Director of the Import-Export Tax Department said that in order to strengthen price management, in 2018 the customs will focus on checking the value of goods items with high tax rates, large turnovers, and regular imports ...

In the development, modification and addition of the list of value risk management, the time for amendment and supplementation of these items will be flexibly adjusted. Accordingly, the Director of the Import-Export Tax Department will guide the provincial Customs Departments to collect sufficient information sources supporting assessment of customs value. The collected information sources must be converted into the customs value of the goods being valued; verifying the sources of information. The sources of information is only used once it has been tested for reliability to determine the value. Therefore, information sources that are still questionable and untreated are not to be used until verified, nor are the reference prices in the list to determine the value.

At the same time, researching into the current consultation models of the provincial and municipal customs departments to find the advantages and disadvantages of these models. Thereby, a decentralized consultancy model will be formed in order to allocate effective reasonable human resources. Assigning the directors of the provincial Customs Departments to base themselves on the practical situation and resources at their units to organize the consultations and post-customs clearance inspection, ensuring the uniform management in the inspection, valuation in customs clearance and post-clearance. At the same time, only assigning officers who have been trained in valuation, that are skilled and experienced in conducting consultations or post-customs clearance inspection.

Continuing to improve the management of customs valuation, the General Department of Customs will organize practical training courses for cadres and civil servants engaged in price work at the unit. Instructing the units to conduct periodical or extraordinary inspections to assess the risks of inspection and valuation activities in the whole unit and to detect errors promptly in order to rectify and handle officials, civil servants, leaders and relevant sections that fail to comply with regulations.

Carrying out periodical or extraordinary inspection and examination to assess the risks of inspection and valuation in the entire branch, detecting errors in order to rectify and handle officials, civil servants, leaders and relevant sections that fail to comply with regulations.

Upgrading GTT02 program according to professional requirements and to serve value management. The list of value risk management is regularly building, reviewing and modifying, which is the basis for customs offices to compare, collate and check the declared value of declarers in the process of making customs procedures or after goods have been cleared according to regulations.

Instructing the units to strengthen post-clearance inspection of the value, by not allowing the status of accepting a low value in contravention of regulations, and not to allow the backlog of the dossiers which are not subject to post-customs clearance inspection. For cases of improper implementation, the violators shall be dealt resolutely.