The Customs of Ho Chi Minh City deploy solutions to overcome exists in customs valuation

Imported frozen chickens have been collected tax of tens of billion VND by the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: T.Hoa.

According to the Customs Department of HCM City, although the unit checked the valuation and collected an increase of hundreds of billion VND of tax in the State budget each year, in practice, there have been still shortcomings that need to be overcome in order to prevent the loss of the state budget.

According to the analysis of the Office of Import-Export Taxes – the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City, the 8 professional steps of the taxable valuation have still had exists, such as: Receipt, examination of records and reality inspection of goods; Examination of the taxable value; Valuation of non-tradable goods, consultations and post-clearance inspections of prices; Reviewing and inspection of the guidance of the General Department of Customs on the system of sub-Departments; Reporting price data, proposing amendments and supplements to the price levels, reference on the List of export-import goods of value risks; Updating tax assessment decisions on centralized tax accounting program and monitoring tax collection and payment, penalizing due to late payment; The handling of violations in customs valuation and the settlement of valuable complaints.

At these steps, the Customs Department of HCM City identified the shortcomings, causes and specific remedial measures.

For example, at the step of receiving and examining the records and inspecting the actual goods, officers at the step of receiving and inspecting the records in details, officers inspecting actual goods accepted the customs declaration, did not define sufficient information, the related factors in details that affect the customs valuation, so that, there was lack of basis for the customs valuation inspection, it was difficult to consult and inspect post-clearance.

Subjective cause, some customs officers have not fulfilled all responsibility, have not complied with regulations; The enterprises have declared deliberately incomplete information and details of goods’ names, so that, it was difficult for the Customs agencies to value. Objective reasons are defined as high workload; Pressure to clear goods fast for the enterprises...

In addition, from the practical implementation at the border gates, the representatives of some Customs Sub-Departments raised the difficulties and the problems in the implementation process, as well as recommendations for specific solutions in the coming time.

At the conference, the representatives of Sub-Departments also showed the pressure of officers working valuation. Deputy Director of International Airport Customs Sub-Department Tran Ngoc Anh said about the pressure on consultation period and post-clearance inspection within 30 days for value consultation and 60 days for post-clearance inspection. Accordingly, the customs officers had to collect information related to the price of goods while struggling with the enterprises to reject the declared value, after that, they had to enter data into the system... Meanwhile, reference information on international prices and domestic prices were still difficult. In addition, in many cases, the enterprises must be consulted, inspected post-clearance prolonged time not to work with the Customs...

After analyzing the inadequacies in valuation work, the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City proposed to the General Department of Customs various issues related to policies, the list of goods and procedures... At the same time, they gave many solutions to improve the effectiveness of the valuation work at the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City in the coming time.

Chairing the meeting, Deputy Director General of Customs Department Hoang Viet Cuong said that the taxable value was part of the State budget revenue, if we had done the valuation well, we would be against budget revenue loss of taxable value. In the past time, many enterprises complied with the law well declared the taxable value correctly, but there were some fraudulent enterprises in the taxable value, this situation had been requested to prevent fraud in valuation by leaders at all levels at the right time.

Deputy Director General Hoang Viet Cuong emphasized that the Office of Import-Export Tax pointed out subjective and objective reasons of all these exists and inadequacies and suggested corrective measures as well as specific recommendations. In the solutions, it was necessary to determine the breakthrough solution to do right for overcoming exists.

The assessment of the actual situation of the taxable valuation showed that all stages, coordination processes, mechanisms and policies on valuation had existed, but mainly at the stage of implementation.

In addition to the solutions were presented by the Office of Import-Export Tax at the meeting, Department Deputy Director General Hoang Viet Cuong directed, first of all, the Office of Import-Export Tax advised the leaders of the Department build documents to direct the units to implement solutions immediately in order to overcome the problems mentioned in the report of the conference; Customs sub-departments had to grasp thoroughly for the customs officers to see the shortcomings, causes clearly, and take immediate corrective measures; Retraining regulations on valuation for all officers working valuation; Sub-Departments organize the review of responsibilities and make good the conclusions of the evaluation inspection and examination teams immediately…