In the remaining days of 2020, the entire Customs sector is drastically implementing solutions to fulfil assigned tasks.In particular, the local Customs units have been speeding up the implementation of budget collection measures stated in Document 7464 / TCHQ-TXNK together with the whole industry.

A year full of difficulties

In 2020, the Customs sector is assigned a revenue target of VND338,000 billion in the context of complicated developments in the world and domestic economy. Since the beginning of the year, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with continuous storms and floods in the central provinces, has seriously affected all aspects of life, society and economy and directly affected import-export activities. Accordingly, trading activities have been restricted, demand for goods has declined, customs clearance has faced difficulties, labour and the economic situation of enterprises have decreased and the price of goods has also fallen sharply.

In addition, in the first months of 2020, especially after the outbreak of Covid-19, oil prices continued to plunge from an average of US$60 per barrel to US$45 per barrel, reducing the value of imported petroleum, leading to decline in revenue for the state budget.

In addition, the continued participation in international economic integration and free trade agreements, particularly the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) effective from January 14, 2019 and the Vietnam - EU Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) on commitments to abolish up to 86% of tariff lines and import taxes of both sides, effective from February 2020 continued to drag down revenue from import and export activities. With that impact, it is expected that the revenue from FTAs in 2020 will reduce by about VND13,900 billion.

Faced with that situation, in order to maximize support for import-export activities and accompany enterprises to overcome difficulties, the General Department of Customs issued Directive 1040 / CT-TCHQ to implement the task of budget collection and assignment of desired targets and debt recovery target to each customs unit. The General Department of Customs also issued many documents guiding the operations related to fields of value, classification, origin, and tax debt management.

Quang Ninh Customs promotes support, accompanying and facilitation to enterprises.
Photo: Quang Hung

In particular, the General Department of Customs has instructed the provincial and municipal Customs Departments to step up administrative procedure reform towards simplicity, clarity, transparency, publicity, convenience and further facilitation to import-export activities, transit of goods and means of transport; and reduction in costs and time of people and enterprises in carrying out customs procedures.

As a result, at the end of December 16, the entire sector collected VND299,292 billion, reaching 88.5% of the assigned target or 84.3% of the desired target, down 10.5% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, according to the representative of the Import-Export Tax Department in the last month of this year, the tax amount to be refunded to enterprises is about VND1,000 billion. Of which, the tax amount to be refunded to automobile production and assembly enterprises according to Decree 57/2020 / ND-CP is about VND790 billion, and the tax amount to be refunded due to additional submission of C/O for petroleum is about VND210 billion.

In order to achieve the above result, many customs departments have exceeded the assigned targets, creating motivation for the provincial and municipal customs departments to strive to achieve the assigned targets in 2020. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the revenue of 10 customs units with large contributions to the customs sector has declined sharply, said the representative of the Import-Export Tax Department.

Specifically, by 2020, as expected, Customs Departments of Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hanoi, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Bac Ninh, Ha Nam Ninh, Quang Ninh and Thanh Hoa will contribute over 88% of the sector’s estimate. But at the end of December 15, the state budget revenue in these 10 units was only VND234,867 billion, equalling 78.5% of the estimate, down 19.12% year-on-year.

Acceleration for the final stage

According to the representative of the Import-Export Tax Department, to ensure the fulfilment of the assigned tasks in 2020, leaders of the General Department of Customs have been actively visiting a number of provincial and municipal Customs Departments to urge them to carry out measures to speed up budget collection in the last month of 2020.

At the same time, at the end of November, the General Department of Customs issued Document 7464 / TCHQ-TXNK requesting provincial and municipal customs departments to drastically carry out financial-budget tasks in the last month of the year, ensuring the highest revenue. In this document, the General Department of Customs directs the customs departments to continue facilitating import and export activities of enterprises and assign more targets to 13 provincial and municipal customs departments.

Accordingly, on the basis of relatively positive revenues in the last three months of the year and only two weeks left until the end of 2020, the Customs sector has estimated the highest revenue at VND312 trillion.

Customs officers of Thanh Hoa Customs Department guide
customs procedures for enterprises. Photo: P. Nhan

The General Department of Customs requested provincial and municipal customs departments to disseminate and guide the business community to implement new policies such as: Decree 57/2020 / ND- CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 122/2016 / ND-CP.

The Export Tariff, Preferential Import Tariff, List of goods and absolute tariffs, mixed taxes, and non-quota import duties and Decree 125/2017 / ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 122/2016 / ND-CP; Decree 126/2020 / ND-CP dated October 19, 2020 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Tax Administration; Decree 111/2020 / ND-CP dated September 18, 2020 of Vietnam’s Government on Preferential Export Tariffs, Special Preferential Import Tariffs to run the Free Trade Agreement between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the European Union for the 2020 – 2020 period, and monitor and promptly solve problems in the implementation of the above regimes and policies or report the problems to competent authorities for handling.

To review and check goods names, codes, tax rates at the customs clearance stage and the post-customs clearance stage to detect and handle cases of incorrect declaration of codes, names or unclear or incomplete declarations of goods names to enjoy low tax rates or special preferential tax rates, focusing on inspection of goods on the list of import and export goods with risk of classification and application of tax rates; to conduct value inspection for goods and enterprises with high potential risk of value to avoid omission of shipments with declaration of undervalue and unreasonable value without timely consultation or treatment, focusing on thematic control for groups of exported goods with high tax rates.

To strengthen anti-revenue loss through post-customs clearance audit, to fight smuggling and trade fraud, focusing on inspections to fight fraud in quantity, origin, trademarks and illegal cross-border transportation of goods, especially conditional imports, shipments in independent transport, temporarily imported goods for re-export, or temporarily exported goods for re-import, goods in transit, and goods into storage pending customs clearance.

To strictly control the tax exemption, reduction and refund, ensure the tax exemption, reduction and refund to the right beneficiaries, to comply with laws and policies, and to step up the inspection and examination of compliance with tax law, regulations and tax administration processes.