Customs: Effective revenue collection from value management

	Customs sector achieved revenue collection by VND 330,474 billion
	“Post clearance audit” contributed hundreds of billion VND to State revenue
	More import – export duty collected via electronic payment

Quang Ninh Customs officers carry out customs value consultation with the representatives of enterprises. Photo: T. Trang

Up to the present, the additional budget revenue from Customs inspection and consultation guides of the General Department of Customs has reached over 100 billion VND.

Strengthen management from the policy

In order to step up the collection management and fight against tax losses fromimport and export goods, in recent years, the Customs has had many positive solutions, in which the anti-revenue loss through the value management has achievedcertain effects. One of the effective solutions is theprocess of advice and policy formulation.

Fromthe problems of the business community and customs authorities in the implementation of the law on customs value such as: enterprises have difficulty explaining to the Customs authorities whether the prices in transactions are affected by a special relationship or not;customs valuation method for export goods is still difficult to apply in specific situations; both enterprises and the Customs officers are still confused when determining the customs value for goods related to software; the declaration and determination of royalties in customs value are still inadequate,the Import and Export Duty Department has proposed to the Ministry of Finance to promulgate Circular No. 60/2019/TT-BTC dated August 30, 2019 on amending, supplementing some articles of Circular No. 39/2015/TT-BTC dated 25/3/2015.

After the document was issued and put into effect, a series of problems in customs inspection and determination have been settled.Customs declarants can easily determine the exact customs value of goods in accordance with regulations, and can proactively prove to the customs office whenindoubt about the declared value, and the customs declarantsare alsofacilitated to uphold the role of supervising the implementation of law provisions for Customs officials.

In addition to advising the issuance of Circular 60/2019/TT-BTC, in order to improve the efficiency of customs valuation in customs clearance, the Import and Export Tax Department has stepped up the application of risk management techniques in value management activities, specifically advising, developing and submitting to the Director of the General Department to sign and issue alist of valuation risks of import-export goods with 93 commodity groups, equivalent to 6,000 reference prices attached, and implement the subject on customs valuation.

The list of import and export goods with risks on customs valuation helps the Customs authorities focus their inspection resources on key items, enhance inspection effectiveness, detect violations,whilecreating clear, quick customs procedures for low-risk items, thereby helping reduce time and costs of enterprises when doing customs procedures.

In addition, the Import and Export Tax Department regularly organizes information collection, analysis and evaluation of valuable data to propose the Director of the General Department to direct the inspection of value in all customs management stages from clearance to post-clearance.

Since the beginning of 2019, the General Department of Customs has directed provincial Customs Departments, post-clearance inspection units, inspection units and anti-smuggling investigation units to focus on a series of goods and enterprises which have violation signs when declaring customs value such as: exported minerals, imported household electrical goods, shaped aluminum, exported scrap steel.

Accordingly, since the beginning of 2019, the total amount of tax collected through the work of customs value management has reached over 100 billion VND, including an increase in revenue due to the restriction of the enterprise's arbitrary declaration of value and due to customs inspection, consultation, rejection and fixing customs value.

In the future, in order to improve the quality of customs value management, the Import and Export Tax Department will submit to the General Department of Customs for promulgation a decision to amend Decision 1810/QD-TCHQ on June 15, 2018 on the process of checking, consulting and determining the customs value of import and export goods during customs procedures (implemented after the Ministry of Finance issued the Circular amending Circular 38/2015/TT- BTC and Circular 39/2018/TT- BTC). In particular, the General Department of Customs will apply the "one-time consultation" mechanism for goods that are regularly imported and exported at a stable price,thereby reducing the number of consultationson value for enterprises, contributing to creating favorable conditions for enterprises to comply with the law, reduce costs and reducing clearance time for goods.

Applying IT and improving human resources

For customs value management, the GTT02 System is an effective information technology tool. The GTT02 system is operated on the principle of centralizing customs value data throughout the Customs to share and use consistently in customs inspection, consultation and fixing customs value.To meet management requirements, the Import and Export Tax Department regularly cooperates with the Department of Information Technology and Customs Statistics to ensure the operation and efficiency of the system. In 2019, the GTT02 System has been upgraded and improved many times, thereby overcoming errors, improving the efficiency of updating and managing data from the Customs Sub-Departments.

Talking with Customs News, Mr. Vy Cong Tuong, Deputy Director of Lang Son Customs Department said that upgrading GTT02 system contributes to improving the efficiency of customs value management. In particular, customs officialsreduce the time to update the value inspection results and price consultation results into the system.

According to the representative of Hai Phong Customs Department, the upgrade of GTT02 system has helped to update data fully and promptly, limiting the omissionof non-updated declarations to serve valuable inspection andeffective consultation.

The operation of the customs value management system, from policies to information technology tools, will not be able to achieve good results if the value management human resources fail to keep up with quality requirements. Since November 2018, the Import and Export Tax Department has compiled a list of 53 customs value experts in provincialCustoms Departmentswho are trained and experienced in value management with good value management knowledge and skills. So far, a team of Customs value experts are regularly consulted with to deal with problems directly at local Customs units as well as provide comments and guidance on the implementation of prices nationwide with the Customs Values Division of the Import-Export Duty Department.

In the future, the Import and Export Tax Department intends to continue to organize seminars, training at the General Department and local Customs Departmentstoimprove the professional qualifications of the customs value management apparatus at all levels, disseminate changes in the price work to each officer working customs value in particular and Customs officers in general.