Adraft circular amending and supplementing Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC dated March 25, 2015 is being considered foramendment by the General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDVC), including amendments to key contents related to customs value such as subjects of inspection anddetermination of suspicious signs on declared customs value and consultation.

Customs operation at North Thang Long Industrial Park Customs Branch. Photo: N.L 

Specify subjects of inspection

Regarding subjects of customs value inspection, current regulations raise the following problems:  The Customs authority conducts value inspection for customs dossiers subject to documentary inspection (Yellow channel) and physical inspection (Red channel). Thus, imported goods subject to temporary import for business or temporary import for re-export must be subject to value inspection while they are subject to tax refund upon re-export or imported and exported goods which are described in Clause 4 Article 2 (tax-free goods), Article 16 (goods exempted from tax) of the Law on Import and Export Duties or are not subject to other taxes (or subject to zero tax rate upon import and export) are also subject to value inspection. At the same time, there is no regulation on the subject of inspection by enterprises, leading to overloading for customs officers in customs clearance.

According to the drafting agency, this content is planned to be amended as followbasedon risks on value and channel classification on the VNACCS, the customs officer willcheck the declared information and value by customs declarant to identify suspicions. 

Regarding identification of suspicions of declared value, point b, clause 3 of Article 25 amending and supplementing clause 14 of Article 1 of Circular No. 60/2018/TT-BTC stipulates cases suspected of declared value. However, there is a problem that due to the great pressure of customs clearance, customs officers must conduct too many inspections (including value inspection) during customs clearance; they cannot inspect all suspicions of declared value.

Therefore, the draft circular expects to amend the value inspection will be conducted for the case being suspected of declared value when comparing the declared value with reference value described in the list of goods subject to risks of value, price level in value database (GTT02) and goods with discount factors.

Regarding inspection procedures, handling of inspection results, current regulations provide if there are enough grounds to reject the declared value upon inspection during customs clearance, the customs agency willrequest the customs declarant make an additional declaration and release goods under the Customs Law, if the customs declarant fails to make an additional declaration in thetime limit, the customs agency willdetermine value and impose tax according to the Law on Tax Administration and release goods.

If there are suspicions ofdeclared value, the customs agency willnotify the customs declarant to carry out consultation with the customs agency to clarify the accuracy of the declared value and release goods. After consultation, if the customs agency has enough grounds to reject the declared value, the customs agency will request the customs declarant make an additional declaration according to the Customs Law and release goods; if the customs declarant fails to make an additional declaration in the described time limit, the customs agency willdetermine the value and impose the tax according to the Law on Tax Administration and release the goods.

Current regulations includemany problems during the implementation, thus the draft circular willamend and supplement as follows: value inspection shall be conducted for cases suspected of value according to risks. Tax assessment shall be applied for cases where there are grounds to reject declared value according to Article 52 of Law on Tax Administration No. 38/2019/QH14. The value inspection willbe conducted for imported and exported goods with the value determined by customs declarant and declared at abnormal low value by customs declarants subject to risk-level from 5 for 9 according to Article 14 of Circular 81/2019/TT-BTC.

Regulations on consultation supplemented

Regarding rulings, Clause 4 of Article 25 only provides direct consultation. Customs declarant shall go to the Customs office to explain the suspicions of the Customs.  The consultation process must be recorded fully and honestly in the consultation minutes; additional documents submitted must be recorded; at the end of consultation, conclusions must be clearly stated in the consultation minutes.The maximum time limit for consultation and handling consultation results is 30 days from the date of the customs declaration registration.

The implementation of current regulations raises problems. At present, e-commerce and information systems are developing, so it is necessary to add an electronic consultation form.Consultation minutes havenot yet specified that the reasons for the rejection must be stated.While the minutes stipulate that "the customs declarantshall agree with the value and valuation method determined by the customs office", leadingto caseswherethe local customs officer rejects the declared value and requests the declarant confirm that they "agree with the value and valuation method determined by the customs office".

To remove shortcomings, the draft plans to supplement the form of indirect consultation, and compliant businesses from level 1 to level 4 willbe applied this method; consultation minutes must supplement a regulation on stating the consultation conclusions or reasons for those conclusions at the end of rulings; the time limit for the consultation and handling of consultation results is up to 30 days from the date of the release of goods or bringing goods to storage.