The issue of customs valuation will be amended to ensure objectivity and to balance the content of legal documents.

Da Nang Customs officials guides enterprise
to implement procedures. Photo: Hồng Vi

The contents of customs valuation specified in Article 20 to Article 22a of Decree No. 08/2015/ND-CP are changed in Clause 8, Clause 9, Clause 10, Article 1 of Decree No. 59/2018/ND-CP.

According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC), current regulations have problems that need to be removed. In Article 20 of the decree, the principles and methods for identifying customs valuation of exported goods are specified. However, for imported goods, it only regulates the principles while the methods are not specified.

On inspection and determination of valuation, Article 21 of this decree stipulates that when rejecting the value, the customs authority must wait for customs declarant to make an additional declaration within five working days. If they do not submit an additional declaration or the additional declaration is not applicable with the notice on customs valuation, the customs authority will impose tax.

Therefore, the Customs authority must arrange staff to regularly monitor the additional declaration for each customs declaration to handle. On the other hand, the provision is not consistent with Points đ and h, Clause 1, Article 52 of the Law on Tax Administration stipulating tax assessment for export and import goods, when the declared value is rejected, the right of determining the price shall belong to the customs authority.

Regarding the exchange rate, according to Clause 5, Article 21 of the decree, the use of exchange rate for tax calculation is the exchange rate provided by the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and sent to the GDVC.

Although exchange rate for tax calculation of foreign currencies are announced by the State Bank. When monitoring exchange rate fluctuations in the past time, the exchange rate announced by Vietcombank is not much different from the tax rate announced by the State Bank. On the other hand, Vietcombank is a joint stock commercial bank and is not the only bank operating in foreign exchange.

Therefore, the GDVC intends to amend and supplement Article 20 by adding names of methods of identifying customs valuation for import goods (name of similar method will comply with the Article 5 of Circular No. 39/2015/TT-BTC amending Clause 4, Article 1 of Circular 60/2019/TT-BTC), and restructured to stipulate the first checkpoint of export and import into a separate clause.

To amend Article 21 for in terms of inspection and determination of value, if the customs authority has sufficient grounds to reject the declared value after consultation, customs value shall be determined and imposed tax in accordance with the provisions of Law on Tax Administration for cargo clearance. If there are not enough grounds for rejection, the customs authority shall implement cargo clearance base on the declared value.

Regarding the use of exchange rates for tax calculation, to ensure objectivity, the drafting board proposes using the exchange rate announced by the State Bank for tax calculation. Specifically, the draft decree stipulates: "The exchange rate between Vietnam Dong and foreign currency used to determine the valuation for tax declaration is the cross-calculation rate of Vietnam Dong with a number of foreign currencies to determine the taxable value (only the US dollar is the buying rate at the State Bank of Vietnam's Exchange) announced by the State Bank of Vietnam on its website on the Thursday of the preceding week or is the exchange rate at the end of the day of the working day preceding the Thursday in case the Thursday is a holiday. This rate is used to determine the taxable rate for customs declarations registered the following week.