Long An Customs: Many solutions to complete the State revenue task

Enterprisesconduct proceduresat the DucHoa Customs Branch, Long AnCustoms Department. Photo: Nguyen Hue.

By the end of September, the revenue of the Long An Customs Department reached 1,527 billion VND, attained 72% of the target assigned by the Ministry of Finance (2.100 billion VND) and nearly 71% of the target set by the General Department of Customs (2.160 billion VND). The Long An Customs Department said that the budget revenue situation of the Department has faced many difficulties since the beginning of this year because the revenues plummeted in the province of TienGiang.

By September 20th, the budget revenue of the TienGiang province only reached nearly 236 billion VND, nearly 34% compared with the target assigned by the Ministry of Finance, down over 38% compared to the same period last year. It is caused by the sharp decline of the main revenue sources.

In recent years, the main budget of the TienGiang province has come from 2 petroleum products of the Thai Son Petroleum Joint Stock Company and asphalt of the International Commerce Construction Joint Stock Company. This revenue accounted for 66% of total revenues in the TienGiang province in 2015. However, in 2016, to September 20th, the revenue from 2 petroleum products has declined 70% over the same period in TienGiang province, because the import petroleum and asphalt quantities reduced greatly.

Accordingly, the revenue of petroleum products was only 30.6%,and asphalt 15% over the first 9 months of 2015. In addition, the Long An province bordersHo Chi Minh city, so that most enterprises, especially the foreign invested enterprises leasing Customs procedure services often choose to make procedures in Ho Chi Minh city; enterprises of 3 provinces Long An, TienGiang, Ben Tre being mainly processing enterprises for production, and export, a small number of commercial business enterprises… this is another reason for limited revenue of the Long An Customs Department in 2016.

According to the Long AnCustoms Department, planned from now until the end of 2016,the budget revenues of the Department will be lower than the average revenue of the first 9 months. The reason is that turnover and tax revenues from iron and steel products is expected to decline (expected decrease of 60 billion VND) because these goods are subject to safeguard duty.

From now until the end of the year, the Customs area of 3 provinces managed by the Long An Department has not added new projects, so there will be no import commodities with high tax rates. Enterprises importing petroleum and asphalt products have decreased significantly compared to 2015 (approximately reduction of 280 billion VND).Besides, withholding tax revenue transferred to the State budget as prescribed will reduce by about 45 billion VND compared to 2015.

To September 30th,the Customs procedure fee of commodities under specialized inspection and commodities with over 10% tax at the import border gates will reduce the revenue sources from these commodities in the last 3 months of the year. (expected reduction of 93 billion VND).

To complete the assigned revenue task, the Long An Customs Department has launched several measures such as: Strengthening tax administration, tax debt recovery through the strengthening of inspections; reviewing potential revenue sources to report to the General Department of Customs to propose to the Ministry of Finance to amend tariffsandtax policies, ensure that all revenues must be collected accurately and fully and paid timely to the State budget; centralizing processing of tax arrears, speeding up tax debt recovery, paying to the State budget timely, strengthening the review and analysis of tax debts, applying coercive measures in the tax debt recovery, and not to incur new debts.

Along with the above solutions, the Long An Customs Department said that the Department will continue to strengthen the prevention of revenue losses through taxable value, through the application of HS codes, especially goods with high tax rates, large import and export turnover, strengthen interdisciplinary coordination mechanisms to preventand inspect detection of commercial fraud for C/O, and determine the focus and key commodities with abnormal turnover signs.

Besides, raising the efficiency of risk management, promoting the analysis of key identification in import-export activities, improving the capacity of Customs staff in charge of analyzing and assessing risks; and Promoting the post-clearance examinations, specialized inspections, anti- smuggling and commercial fraud...