Customs paid 1,034.3 billion VND of Customs post-clearance audits to State budget

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Customs operations in HCM City. Photo: Le Thu.

Anti-loss tool

According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in July 2017, the forces of Customs post-clearance audits conducted 886 times of audits, with 115 times of audits at the headquarters of Customs declarants, and 771 times at Customs office. From the results of audits, the Customs office set the tax and administrative fine of 160 billion VND; collected revenues for the State budget of 170 billion VND (including the revenues from the previous examination).

Thus, by the end of July 2017, the total forces of the Customs post-clearance audits performed 4,991 times of audits, with 4,665 times at the Customs office and 626 times at the headquarters of Customs clearance (49%). The total amount of imposed taxes and fines for administrative violations reached 1,165.3 billion VND, with 1,034.3 billion VND paid into the State budget, accounting for 49% of the assigned target.

In particular, a number of large revenue units included the Customs Department of post-clearance audits with 335 billion VND, the Hai Phong Customs Department with 211 billion VND, and VND 69.9 billion from the Hanoi Customs Department. Notably, the Bac Ninh Customs Department collected 45.4 billion VND, reaching 454% of the target.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs determined that the operations of Customs post-clearance audit, operations to prevent and combat smuggling, commercial frauds and counterfeit goods; examination; inspections, analysis and classification of goods, etc are important tools in the implementation of the task of preventing budget revenue losses.

As for the Customs post-clearance audits, in order to ensure the achievement of the targets, the General Department of Vietnam Customs has issued a number of legal documents regulating Customs post-clearance audit for key enterprises in some Customs Department such as the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, the Hai Phong Customs Department, the Binh Duong Customs Department, the Dong Nai Customs Department and the Long An Customs Department.

Why are revenues of Ho Chi Minh City Customs low?

In particular, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department collected revenues of Customs post-clearance audits for the State budget lower than the target.

On 4^th August 2017, speaking to a reporter of the Customs Newspaper, the leader of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits (under the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City) said that by the end of July 2017, the total forces collected 181.3 billion VND to the State budget. Specifically, the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits paid 67.6 billion VND to the State budget, and the Customs post-clearance audits divisions of Customs Branches paid 113.7 billion VND to the State budget.

Thus, compared to the assigned target in 2017 of 680 billion VND, revenues of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department reached approximately 26.7%.

Explaining the reasons for the real revenues lower than the target, the leader of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits said this situation came from many objective and subjective causes. In particular, from the beginning of 2017, implementing Official Letter 905 / TCHQ-TXNK of 17^th February 2017 of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department assigned the Customs valuation inspections within 60 days from the Customs post-clearance audits divisions to the price consultancy divisions. Meanwhile, this operational activity contributed the largest revenue to the results of the Department. For example, from the beginning of 2017 to the end of July 2017, the revenues from consultancy of Customs Branches reached 341 billion VND (whereas in 2016 this field was implemented by Customs post-clearance audits divisions).

On the other hand, according to the leader of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits, revenues in the first months of the year from the work of Customs post-clearance audits in the area were normally lower than those in the last months of the year.

HCM City Customs: Tax arrears arise from Customs post-clearance audits VCN- Although many drastic measures have been implemented, hundreds of billions of vnd from tax arrears arise ...

"Although there has been many objectives and subjective difficulty, from now to the end of the year, the forces of Customs post-clearance audits under the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department will deploy drastic solutions to achieve the highest results. In particular, they shall pay special attention to businesses, with a high risk", the leader of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits said.