Euro Cham: Simplifying customs procedures creates great encouragement

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The European business community in Vietnam highly appreciates the efforts of the Customs authorities to change. Photo: Thu Hoa

Narrow the gap between businesses and state agencies

At the launch of the 2019 White Book event, just organized by EuroCham, Mr. Pham Dinh Thi, Director of Tax Policy Department, Ministry of Finance, said that the tax and customs administrative policies and procedures have been approved by the Ministry of Finance. Together with all levels and branches, efforts should be made to amend and clearly stipulate in legal documents. Therefore, the responsibility of the business is to implement and comply fully.

It is also said that significant changes to simplify customs procedures have been creating great encouragement for businesses, Mr. Bob Flecher, Vice President of Eurocham Transport and Logistics Subcommittee suggested that exchanges and dialogues between tax authorities and customs and the European business community be strengthened so that these businesses can make recommendations.

Explaining in more detail on this issue, Mr. Vu Anh, Deputy Director of Legal Department, General Department of Customs, said that Vietnam's policy commitments when getting comments are through the VCCI to bring to domestic and international businesses... At present, the Customs has established channels of customs partners - businesses, through the Annual Business Forum (VBF) to get business opinions. In addition, draft laws and opinions are posted publicly on the website of the Government, ministries and branches, so enterprises can actively contribute ideas.

According to the 2019 White Book, in a recent survey of EuroCham members, businesses acknowledged the efforts of Vietnam Customs in issuing more transparent and appropriate customs regulations for businesses. However, the Transportation and Logistics Subcommittee said that the Customs Department should enhance transparency by having each provincial Customs Department to have a separate Hotline (different from the General Department of Customs Hotline) to both help reduce the load for the General Department of Customs, while facilitating problems that can be solved at the local level in a shorter time.

In addition, the General Department of Customs may publish an annual Report on hotline records and related results (anonymously). This will raise awareness and give businesses confidence in actions that are being taken by government agencies. Moreover, the system of e-customs declarations needs to be revised to facilitate written communication between all levels of customs authorities and the business community, thereby minimizing informal communication channels and limiting the ability to generate informal charges.

Policies must be appropriate

Also at the event, representatives of the Tax and Customs agencies directly answered many questions from the European business community. In particular, regarding the special consumption tax on sugar drinks, Pham Dinh Thi said that the recommendations of international organizations recommended countries to limit soft drinks, sweetened sweet drinks because abuse can lead to the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the tax agency is still listening to the opinions of the units and businesses to have an appropriate special consumption tax policy.

Besides, the report in the White Book of the year 2019 also gives opinions of European businesses about some tax policies.

Specifically, to ensure transparency and consistency among authorities when implementing policies to encourage investment attraction, the agency proposed the Government of Vietnam, with a role to promote development and co-operation with enterprises, considering directing relevant ministries and agencies to have consistent, timely and appropriate conclusions on the application of preferential exchange policies to projects on manufacturing industry development priorities made before 2015, launched under Law 71/2014 / QH13.

In addition, the Tax and Transfer Sub-Committee also proposed tax authorities to apply more advanced methods in the application of Decree 20/2017 / ND-CP on tax administration for enterprises with related transactions and new regulations on transfer pricing.

Regarding issues related to the customs sector, EuroCham members welcomed the Circular 39/2018 / TT-BTC issued by the Ministry of Finance, clarifying information related to the establishment for price consultation and the establishment of rejecting the customs declaration value.

Therefore, the Transportation and Post-Subcommittee should specify what kind of documents the declarers need to present in the price consultation process; prescribe the responsibility to prove that the establishment determines and declares the value of the original customs duty calculation to belong to the declarer.However, this agency said that the Circular requires the verification process of the above facilities must be done right at the time of customs clearance with the border gate customs, instead of moving to the post-customs clearance does not seem to create much impact on improving the quality of customs verification.

In particular, this Subcommittee said that the Government should provide a more practical mechanism to assist businesses in obtaining a judgment on customs duty value; there should be formal guidance on how Customs will consider using information in the transfer pricing documents and policies, and price consultation procedures should be extended to include imported goods of non-commercial.

Along with the above issues, European enterprises in Vietnam welcomed the Customs agency's efforts to strengthen consistency in the application of HS codes across the country, through regular inspections process of applying and declaring HS codes at all border gates; issuing documents to determine beforehand the centralized codes at the General Department of Customs.

Proposing to implement Customs procedure via ASEAN transit system

However, this agency said that determining the HS codes applied to import and export goods are often difficult for both businesses and customs. In order to support businesses to classify goods and improve compliance, the Transportation and Logistics Subcommittee recommends that Vietnam Customs should publish on its official website (in both Vietnamese and English) all documents that are classified legally (issued within the last 5 years) to facilitate businesses to look up information.