Why Mercedes-Benz Vietnam will be assessed more than 100 billion vnd of tax

Mercedes was one of the luxury car brands examined by the Post clearance audit force in 2016. Photo: Internet.

Ms. Nguyen Thu Nhieu said that the Post clearance audit was the regular professional activity of the Customs authorities stipulated in the Customs Law and other related legislations. In particular, the Post clearance audit has been a modern Customs management method which the World Customs Organization (WCO) recommended that Customs of member countries implement in the context of accelerating the facilitation of trade, and reducing cargo clearance time.

On the other hand, in 2016, implementing the instruction of the leaders of the Ministry of Finance, and the General Department of Customs, the post-clearance audit forces enhanced to inspect imported goods with large turnover, high tax rates, and high import frequency. Typically, the imported CBU cars (completely built-up), especially the luxury brands such as Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce.

Back to the Mercedes- Benz Vietnam case, according to Ms. Nguyen Thu Nhieu, under the provisions of the law, and the leadership of the Ministry of Finance, and the General Department of Customs, in June 2016, of the Post-clearance Audit Bureau issued a decision on post-clearance audits at the headquarter of the enterprise as prescribed.

In October 2016, based on the inspection results and explanations of the company, the Post-clearance Audit Bureau issued the tax assessment decision for Mercedes-Benz Vietnam Ltd., Co; the total tax assessment amount was over 100 billion VND.

Two reasons which were determined by the Customs authorities were that the company had not declared exactly the code for the imported goods which led to lower payable tax amount; The second reason was that Mercedes-Benz Vietnam and its foreign partners had a special relationship but they declared incorrect, incomplete, and inaccurate criteria on the Customs declaration, the value declaration when they made the Customs procedures, so that, the Customs authorities did not accept the declared value and determined the Customs values again under the provisions of law.

The leader of the Post-clearance Audit Bureau said that by December 2016, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam executed the decision on tax assessment and paid the full amount of the outstanding tax under the decision of the Customs authorities.

The representative of the Post-clearance Audit Bureau said that the order and procedures for inspecting and issuing the decisions on tax assessment had been implemented strictly and ensured compliance with provisions of law.

Notably, according to the representative of the Post-clearance Audit Bureau, when the Customs authorities worked with the company during and after the process of the post-clearance audits, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam always cooperated, provided a full range of related documents. Especially, after the inspection at the headquarters, Customs created many opportunities for the enterprise to explain and demonstrate the checked contents.

After the Customs authorities issued the tax assessment decision, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam had consciousness, a sense of responsibility to execute the tax assessment decision, and paid the full amount of outstanding tax into the State budget as mentioned above, although the company still had different opinions to send to the authorities.

Currently, the company has sent a written complaint and the Customs authorities received and are handling in accordance with law.

The leader of the Post-clearance Audit Bureau shared more, the activities of the post-clearance audits were not only the recovery for the amount of tax into the State budget, but more importantly, through these activities, the Customs authorities helps enterprises detect errors in the application of policies and laws to remedy promptly, avoiding a error afterwards. The Customs authorities always consider the enterprises as partners in the process of implementing mechanisms, policies and laws in the field of customs.