Officers of the Post-Clearance Audit Branch under Quang Ninh Customs Department check dossiers. Photo provided by the branch.

Performing Post-clearance audit for high-risk enterprises

As of November 15, the Post Clearance Audit Branch under Quang Ninh Customs Department issued 53 decisions on post-clearance audits, including 46 decisions on audits at enterprises’ premises. And one decision on random specialized inspection, six decisions on audit at the customs’ headquarters. Through the audit, Customs has collected more than VND9.67 billion, meeting 106.9% of the target. The rate of violations detected by the audit reached 91.83% of the target.

In 2022, the branch has formulated a thematic post-clearance audit plan, focusing on high-risk enterprises.

The branch has inspected HS codes of high-risk goods; checked customs value for high-value items (minerals, consumer goods), on trade policy (tax-free goods and goods subject to special preferential import tax rates under free trade agreements), imported goods with two tax rates, and imported used machinery and equipment.

According to the branch, in order to improve the efficiency of information collection and analysis, the branch has built a database for a 5-year period (2017-2022), and processed more than 600,000 declarations and 2.5 million product streams.

In addition, the branch has trained officers in collecting and using information; strengthened coordination and provision of information for the post-clearance audit with subordinate units. The branch has also focused on training to improve knowledge for officers, implementing group discussions, assigning experienced officers to instruct other officers, and developing operational manuals.

Actively disseminating and guiding policies

The Post-Clearance Audit Customs Branch has strengthened information collection and performs post-clearance audits for some outsourcing enterprises, export production and export processing enterprises. Through the audit, the majority of enterprises complied with customs laws, policies on import and export goods and taxes. Besides, some businesses have had tax arrears collected and sanctioned by the Customs for administrative violations because their awareness and understanding of the law was still limited.

In fact, the Customs detected that many enterprises that destroyed imported raw materials, finished products of goods produced for export before the effective date of Decree No. 18/2021/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No.134/2016/ND-CP detailing a number of articles and measures on implementation of the Law on Import and Export Duty on April 25, 2021 but have not yet paid taxes.

On the other hand, some enterprises only implement one or several simple stages of the product, and then export the goods to enjoy tax exemption.

The branch has sanctioned 42 administrative violations and fined more than VND1.14 billion. Violations are mainly related to the false declaration of HS codes, tax rate of goods; violating regulations on inventory management, leading to a lack of tax payable; imported materials used for production inconsistent with the actual production of goods processed and produced for export; and false declaration on the origin of imported goods subject to tax.

According to the branch, these violations result from the lack of knowledge of legal documents, especially newly issued legal documents, customs procedures and policies, and tax policies related to the regime of export processing and production.

Therefore, in addition to identifying and investigating violations, and collecting tax arrears, the post-clearance audit working teams have actively guided businesses on the new contents of Decree 18, especially, regulations on tax exemption for goods imported for processing, processed products for export in cases where the taxpayer fails to report the re-processing establishment or the re-processing contract, regulations on notification of processing and reprocessing establishments; the notification of the reprocessing facility after the customs checks the final settlement report.