Officers of the Post-Clearance Audit Branch (Ha Nam Ninh Customs Department) check documents. Photo: H.Nu

According to General Department of Customs, the impact of the world economy as well as the commitments on tariff reduction are posing many challenges to Vietnam's import-export activities and the state budget collection in 2023 of the Customs sector.

Statistics show that, in January 2023, the state budget revenue from import-export activities fell 42.3% year-on-year to VND24,852 billion, equal to 5.8% of the estimate.

Therefore, to complete the budget task, in Directive 479/CT-TCHQ on developing solutions to facilitate trade, improve the efficiency of state management, and prevent revenue loss, the Director General of Customs Nguyen Van Can requests central and local customs units to make efforts to drastically implement a series of key tasks from the beginning of the year. Based on common tasks of the whole sector, the General Department of Customs requires customs units at all levels to strictly implement solutions to prevent loss of state budget revenue.

Specifically, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to closely monitor state budget collection and impacts on revenue such as the implementation of free trade agreements, fluctuations in oil prices, fluctuations in taxable import-export turnover, difficulties and problems related to tax policy and international integration commitments to promptly report to the leaders of the General Department and the leaders of the Ministry of Finance.

Regarding the value work, it is proposed to build, amend and supplement the list of risks in value for import and export goods and the attached reference price in accordance with price fluctuations of import and export goods every six months or irregularly.

Further, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to focus on reviewing customs declarations on the Taxable price data management information system (GTT02 System) or propose to issue documents to promptly direct the customs departments of provinces and cities strictly comply with the regulations on value inspection, avoiding the omission of shipments with under-value or unreasonable declaration without inspection and consultation at clearance stage or post-clearance.

In the classification and application of tax rates, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to review and propose to develop, amend and supplement the list of risks in terms of classification and application of tax rates to goods, which focuses on evaluating, analyzing and listing high-risk items in classification and identification of codes every six months or irregularly.

Moreover, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to conduct inspection and review of operational systems to promptly detect violations, direct the local Customs Department and the Customs Verification Department to unify the classification and identification of codes and tax rate in accordance with the principle that one item has only one code according to Vietnam’s list of import-export goods.

In addition, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to review and propose the General Department to direct the post-customs clearance audit unit, the inspection unit, the investigation and anti-smuggling unit to take professional measures to handle cases showing signs of fraud of classification when the goods have gone through customs clearance.

For the work of tax exemption, reduction, refund, and non-collection, the Import-Export Tax Department is assigned to review and direct local Customs Departments to inspect those who are subject to tax exemption, reduction, refund, non-collection and fail to tax payment; direct the units to assess risks, conduct an inspection at the taxpayer's headquarters after tax refund to promptly detect and handle cases of fraud and profiteering in the form of refund before inspection; focus on reviewing and firmly grasping the tax debt situation of local customs departments, the Post-Clearance Audit Department; and direct the classification and handling of debt groups.