The HCM City Customs Department has resolved difficulties and fought against smuggling and State budget revenue amid the pandemic.

Customs officers of the Express Customs Branch under the HCM City
Customs Department inspect goods using scanners. Photo: TH

Many violations cases taken to court

Amid the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the HCM City Customs Department has made efforts to overcome difficulties. The department has taken a lot of measures to boost clearance of goods while grasping the situation and controlling the area to prevent customs-related violations in a timely manner.

Enterprises have taken advantage of risk management mechanisms in the customs clearance to cheat on customs declaration in order to evade tax.

HCM City Customs has discovered many cases where firms deliberately falsely declare information about name, quantity, code of goods to avoid tax, withholding hundreds millions of tax revenue from the State budget.

For example, Thao Khoa Import and Export Trading Service Co., LTD was sued in May. The company opened a declaration to export 13.5 tonnes of unprocessed aluminum alloy worth VND486 million (more than US$21,000) subject to 5% tax rate. When checking dossiers, the Saigon port zone 1 customs branch saw signs of violations and took samples for physical inspection. As a result, the export goods were 24 tonnes of master alloy in crude ingots subject to 15% of export tax rate. The infringing goods were valued at more than VND3.8 billion (US$166,634) with a tax difference of more than VND550 million (over US$24,000).

Violations of Customs laws in import and export activities in seaports and airports in HCM City have reduced but the HCM City Customs Department has still introduced measures to minimise smuggling and trade fraud amid the pandemic.

Non-commercial goods strictly controlled

HCM City officials said the unit has strengthened inspection of import and export of non-commercial goods. Recently, many firms committed violations of this type and made wrong declarations of name, quantity and origin of goods to fraud price, avoid submission of permits, as well as abused this type to transport banned goods. In addition to drug smugglings in non-commercial goods, the importation of medical supplies without permits has been a problem.

To prevent firms from revising the manifest for smuggling and trafficking, the HCM City Customs Department has proposed stricter measures. The existing regulation on revising manifest is simple and easy, which allows firms to change the consignee after opening a declaration, so some enterprises ise this to correct the consignee if their shipment is monitored by the customs. Thus, it makes it tough for customs in anti-smuggling for these cases and increase declarations on the Viet Nam Automated Cargo Clearance System (VNACCS).

HCM City Customs has focused on seeking solutions to prevent enterprises from abusing the regulation on manifest correction subject to Red Channel, thereby, reducing amount of declarations on the VNACCS.

In the near future, the HCM City Customs will ask its customs units to enhance control and patrol on seaports, airports to capture information of processing and investment goods in export processing zones and high-tech parks; struggle with fake dossiers and documents upon customs process to take goods out of customs areas, and prevent goods from border gate transfer, port transfer and transit without permits and wrong declarations in a timely fashion.