Complete regulations to avoid taking advantage of transit goods for smuggling

Ivory shipment was detected by HCMC Customs inside transit shipment in 6/9/2017. Photo: T.H

According to Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department Pham Quoc Hung, customs procedures for transit goods (independent transport declaration) are stipulated in Articles 64, 65 and 68 of the Customs Law. Article 43 of Decree 08/2015 / ND-CP dated 2/1/2015; Article 50, Article 51, Article 52 of Circular No. 38/2015 / TT-BTC dated 25/3/2015 is very simple and clear, thus it is a leak for enterprises to take advantage of cheating in the declaration, such as declaration for single items without a license,...

In addition, the subjects also take advantage of the establishment of "ghost" enterprises in order to get legal entities for operating smuggling activities.

Currently, the sanctioning penalty is still mild. According to Article 14 in the Decree No. 127/2013 / ND-CP of the Government at 15/10/2013: Pecuniary penalty from 10 million vnd to 30 million vnd for acts of transit goods or leave the country ... which is in the case of requiring a license, do not have a license of the competent authority.

From the above situation, in order to reduce the situation of taking advantage of transit mode for smuggling and trade frauds, the HCM City Customs Department has proposed to supplement more regulations on enterprises who have permission to implement procedures for transit goods, such as shipping lines, transportation agents registered multimodal transport;

Applying the use of positioning seals for transit shipments in order to facilitate the control of routes and goods and avoids smugglers slip goods into the domestic market.

Besides that, it is necessary to regulate the adjustment of the consignee's name in Vietnam to the consignee's name in Cambodia to receive goods when the Customs office has suspected information, as the current provision does not prohibit this adjustment thus the smugglers will take advantage of that.

For the enterprise's establishment, the HCM City Customs Department said that the verification of enterprises at business registration address is also very difficult. According to Deputy Director of Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City Pham Quoc Hung, when looking up the enterprise name on the information system of taxpayers, they are still operating. However when customs authority comes to business registration address, they detected that the address doesn’t exist or there is no enterprise operated at that address (if the enterprise exists),...

Therefore, it is very difficult to identify the offender when the enterprise deliberately avoids the Customs authority, which causes difficulties in the work of destroying and handling the goods owners.

From this fact, the HCM City Customs Department suggested that the competent authorities need to manage and monitor closely business activities of enterprises as well as verify before granting business registration certificate.

Enterprises take advantage of policies of exemption in customs inspection, convoy exemption in our country for transit in order to remove cargo during transportation. For example, the shipment of 180 iPhones from the declaration number 500055506943 dated 17/9/2016 of TR transportation co., Ltd has “disappeared” on the way of transportation;

Or the subjects do the normal export procedures but then shipped back to Vietnam just after crossing the border. Typically, the consignment of foreign drugs under the declaration number 500083345940 dated 3/5/2017 of Bee logistics corp transported through the Moc Bai international border gate to Cambodia and back to HCMC.

The HCM City Customs Department recommended that it need to regulate the standard of means of transport for transit goods that must meet the requirements of customs seals (hull structure, hinges…