Khanh Hoa Customs officers guide businesses through procedures. Illustration photo: T.H

Clearing doubt about C/O

Khanh Hoa Customs has directly addressed numerous questions and suggestions from businesses regarding various customs procedures. These include determining the correct HS code for fabric products, filling out information on C/O form E, and handling situations where customs declarations are not validated due to system errors.

In response to a query from Khatoco Trading Company regarding discrepancies in product codes on the certificate of origin, a representative from Khanh Hoa Customs cited Circular 2011/TCHQ-GSQL dated May 9, 2024, issued by the General Department of Vietnam Customs. According to this circular, if there is evidence that the imported goods listed on the certificate of origin do not match the goods declared on the customs declaration, the analysis report, or the actual imported goods, the certificate of origin will be rejected.

If there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the imported goods listed on the certificate of origin match the goods declared on the customs declaration, the analysis report, or the actual imported goods, the provisions of Article 16 of Circular 33/2023/TT-BTC dated May 31, 2023 of the Ministry of Finance (guiding the handling of discrepancies in product codes on imported goods certificates of origin and customs declarations in certain special cases) and Article 27 of Circular 12/2019/TT-BCT dated July 30, 2019 (guiding the handling of minor discrepancies on C/O form E) shall apply.

Regarding C/O form E, a business inquired: "According to the Chinese exporter, Chinese customs allows the omission of two pieces of information: 'vessel name' and 'vessel departure date'. Is a C/O form E missing this information still valid?"

In response, the leadership of Khanh Hoa Customs stated that according to Appendix II of Circular 12/2019/TT-BCT dated July 30, 2019, which guides the declaration of C/O form E, box 03 contains information on the departure date, means of transport, and port of loading. According to Circular 414/TCHQ-GSQL dated January 17, 2020, the information in box 03 is only estimated (as far as known), therefore, discrepancies between the information in box 03 and the information on the bill of lading or other transport documents do not affect the validity of the C/O. Currently, there is no guidance allowing the omission of information in box 03 on C/O form E. Businesses are advised to comply with existing regulations.

Khanh Hoa Customs has also provided clarifications on export procedures for specific goods such as USBs containing copyrighted software and fly ash.

Avoiding mistakes in settlement report

At this dialogue, the Khanh Hoa Customs Department, upon the request of several businesses, shared some common mistakes businesses often make when Customs authority inspect settlement reports. These errors include: submitting settlement reports past the deadline; failing to declare or declaring production standards past the deadline; failing to declare the quantity of domestically purchased materials, non-construction materials that can be standardized according to regulations; and incorrectly declaring customs reports for imported goods that have completed customs procedures or are still in transit and have not yet been stored at the end of the reporting period; and incorrectly declaring customs reports due to a lack of coordination and information sharing among departments, and the preparation of customs declaration reports not being based on the management and monitoring of accounting books and actual production.

To reduce these violations, customs authorities recommend that businesses carefully review the notes in the forms in Appendix V attached to Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC, as amended by Circular 39/2018/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance. In addition, businesses need to regularly check and review related changes when carrying out customs procedures, such as material codes; product codes on the declaration compared to codes in the warehouse, accounting codes, units of measure, unit conversion; amended or canceled declarations after customs clearance, etc. At the same time, when preparing settlement reports, it is necessary to link data from different departments, from actual production and accounting books and vouchers; regularly check and compare data between departments on a monthly or quarterly basis to promptly adjust when errors or discrepancies are detected.

Committing to the business community, Deputy Director of Khanh Hoa Customs Department Phan Thanh Son affirmed that the unit is always striving to reform administrative procedures to better serve businesses in import and export activities, enhance transparency and publicity; shorten clearance time, reduce costs and travel time for businesses when performing customs procedures; always listen to and accompany businesses, continue to promote calls for dialogue with businesses with import and export activities in Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces