Comments for draft revised Circular No. 38 frankly received

	Consultations for Southern Customs on draft Circular amending Circular 38
	Consultation on the draft Circular revising Circular 38
	20th March 2017: Online exchange on amendment and supplementation of Circular 38/2015 / TT-BTC

Operational activities at the North Thang Long industrial park Customs sub-department. Photo: N. Linh

Regulations on Customs dossier submission amended

To formulate the draft Circular, the Deputy General Director of Customs Vu Ngoc Anh agreed that the contents of the circular must create a balance that facilitates business and creates favorable conditions for the State management agency, not for a few fraudulent enterprises that affect true businesses.

Mr. Au Anh Tuan (Deputy Director General of Customs Supervision Department, General Department of Customs) also mentioned the spirit of this Circular is the effort to apply an information technology system to ensure the procedures relating to businesses which are implemented through a simple and transparent system against troubles and harassment.

In the spirit of grasping comments from the business community into the draft circular, businesses frankly contributed many ideas to the Drafting Board. Expert of GIG Project Pham Thanh Binh also said that " Customs is the only sector which always asks for opinion of enterprises”. This is also the target of Customs when formulating drafting circulars to ensure the simplicity, transparency and advantages for businesses.

For example, one of the points that received many opinions of enterprises is the regulation on the Customs dossier submission. The Drafting Board raised the fact that Customs dossiers are scattered in a number of Articles of Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC according to each type or management mode in order to comply with the regulations of each specific issue (Article 16 and Article 82 for temporary import for re-export, Article 86 for on-spot export, etc.).

In addition, Article 16 of Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC fully provides the Customs dossiers for imported and exported but does not specify the application for declaration in the Customs clearance or post clearance as well as the archive of documents at the enterprise’s headquarters. The current regulations cause inadequacies such as not clarifying the number of documents which must be submitted at the Customs clearance time and at the post-clearance audit time and especially the documents which must be kept at enterprises’ headquarters to prove the declaration was made

As a result, many enterprises and Customs officers are very confused in determining which documents are required to be submitted when implementing Customs procedures, and which documents must be kept at the enterprise, and if the documents were submitted to the Customs agencies, whether enterprises have to save them or not? To solve this problem, the Drafting Board plans to list all the documents that Customs declarants must have when carrying out the Customs procedures for imported and exported goods. Customs declarants must save all documents mentioned in Article 16 (Article 16 of the draft Circular) and present them to the Customs office upon post-clearance audit or specialized inspection. According to Mr. Au Anh Tuan, this regulation makes it easy for both Customs declarants and Customs agencies to know exactly which documents to keep and the documents to be checked to ensure transparency.

The opinions of the Drafting Board received the consensus of enterprises, however, this regulation also has some shortcomings that make it difficult for enterprises to implement. The GIG Project expert said that there are too many papers in the dossier to be archived. The payment documents have been saved by the accounting records, when conducting the post Customs clearance audit, those papers are already there, so it should reduce the documents archived to avoid duplication. A Representative of Hung Yen Knitting and Dyeing Co., Ltd also pointed out his view on the dossiers which must be kept by enterprises: enterprise can save documents in electronic form.

However, only main documents will be kept, and other documents must be only kept depending on the item list or category of goods. If listing all the documents to submit and save, they will be too large with some enterprises or insufficient with other enterprises. Therefore, the regulation should specify the Customs documents including the original documents such as: declarations, invoices, packing list.

Receiving the opinions of enterprises, the representative of the Customs Management Supervision Department said that the Department will continue to improve the contents of Customs dossiers to request the documents that enterprises have and avoid the current situation which is that enterprises forget to keep Customs dossiers, when they are inspected, causing difficulties for both Customs agencies and enterprises.

Liability of enterprise in transport of goods to storage

Regarding the new points in the regulation on transporting goods to storage, the Drafting Board said that now the transport of goods to storage is conducted on the basis of the request of enterprises or specialized management agencies. The Customs declarants shall be responsible for storing the goods, and conditions for storage areas of goods are not specified. In fact, there were some cases where the goods in the storage process were sold or were no longer in the storage area as registered with the Customs agencies. And goods which have not been certified as eligible for import if they are placed in circulation, they are likely to affect public health and national security. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the management of the transport of goods to storage, both ensuring the principles and facilitate and reduce cost for enterprise, and ensuring Customs management and social security and safety

According to a representative of Yusen logistics company, for the regulation on equipment of camera for supervision at warehouses and storages, large enterprise will be easy to meet, but the small and medium size enterprises or commercial enterprise will raise many investment costs for applying code of storage areas which requires the inspection and certification on full conditions for supervision from the General Department of Customs. Thus it should be replaced by regulations on the Customs seals.

However, according to Mr. Au Anh Tuan, if the regulation on the Customs seals for goods transported to storage: When goods are transported out of ports, Customs agencies will seal them, and enterprises cannot unload goods to transport to the warehouses, if enterprises keep the whole container, raising costs for enterprises. Mr. Au Anh Tuan stated that the Drafting Board will review the regulations to ensure not to raise procedures for enterprises.

Circular No. 38/2015/TT-BTC: 68 provisions will be amended, supplemented or repealed VCN- The draft Circular amending and supplementing the Ministry of Finance’s Circular No. 38/2015/TT-BTC of 25th March ...

For other contents, the Drafting Board received and completed the draft Circular amending and supplementing Circular No. 38/2015/TT-BTC to further ask for opinions of the business community and other relevant management agencies. Mr. Au Anh Tuan acknowledged that it is expected to hold conferences on fields such as goods processed for export production for specific discussion on management method.