Customs revenue continues to decline due to Covid-19 impacts

	Customs' revenue in first six months drops VND 27,484 billion
	Ho Chi Minh City Customs’ revenue reaches over VND45,730 billion
	Customs’ revenue plunges in first quarter

Hai Phong Customs officers inspect import-export goods. Photo: T. Binh

Reduced revenues in many local units

In 2020, the Customs sector has faced many challenges in implementing State budget tasks, including the impact of the tax reduction of the freetrade agreements (FTAs), the US-China trade war that cuts import and export activities of many enterprises and the decline of petroleum imports, but especially the unexpected impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on enterprises' operations and import-export activities.

As of September 15, total import-export turnover reached US$361.5 billion. Of which, the total export value was estimated atUS$188 billion and the total import value US$173.5 billion. Many high-tax products fell sharply over the same period,some large factories and projects were severely affected by a lack of employees and experts, making production and business activities stuck, affecting the budget revenues of many provincial and municipal customs departments.

According to a representative of the Import-Export Tax Department, the budget collection situation of some provincial and municipal customs departments with remarkable contributions to the customs sector's revenue was affected, so revenues decreased sharply.

Among 35 provincial and municipal customs departments nationwide, many units have suffered serious impacts from the reoccurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic from the end of July because those provinces and cities have many headquarters and production facilities. HCM City Customs Department recently collected VND 72.136 billion VND, 62.72% of the estimate and down 14.9% (over the same period last year). Hai Phong Customs Department collected nearly VND 38.867 billion VND, down 22.6% over the same period last year and only 58.1% of the estimate. Dong Nai Customs Department collected VND 10,580 billion, down 20.77%, 54.82% of the estimate. Ha Tinh Customs Department hit VND 3,345 billion, down 33.95% and only reached 49.93% of the estimate. Quang Nam Customs Department’s revenue decreased by 31.48%, only reaching VND 2,987 billion due to decline of global and domestic petroleum prices. In Da Nang Customs Department, the Covid-19 outbreak has made all activitiesstuck.

Each year, the State budget collection of the Customs sector faces different difficulties, but in 2020 the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has a serious impact. According to the HCM City Customs Department, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the unit’s budget revenue from May started to decrease gradually while every year from July onwards, enterprises enter the production season for the holiday seasons such as Christmas and New Year's Eve. This is the time enterprises increase imports of raw materials to serve for production for export orders. But for this year, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused this to stall.

In addition to objective reasons caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced many countries and territories to close and limit trade to focus on the disease prevention, the effective FTAs ​​in 2020 such as CPTTP and EVFTA have significantly affected the State budget revenue of the Customs sector in 2020 and following years.

Drastic solutions

The General Department of Customs has determined the completion of revenue targets in 2020 as difficult tasks in the current situation, which requires the whole sector to drastically implement solutions to support enterprises to restore production and business, increasing budget revenue.

The General Department of Customs has directed units in the sector to promote administrative reform solutions, enhancing measures to support and remove difficulties for enterprises to develop production and business.

To strengthen guidance of new policies of the Government on solving difficulties for the development of production and business amid the Covid-19 pandemic in many countries around the world; tocontinue to reform and simplify administrative procedures, promote customs modernisation, apply online public services in the implementation of electronic customs procedures and work with the Treasury and banks to conduct online tax payment 24/7 service to ensure fast customs clearance for enterprises and facilitate them to carry out tax refund, tax exemption and tax payment extension.

In particular, to give priority to the quick handling of procedures to reduce time and costs for enterprises, especially for fresh fruits in the season; to appoint specialised civil servants to advise and handle export procedures for agricultural products and fresh fruits for export enterprises.

In addition, alongside favourable solutions, to combat revenue loss, the General Department of Customs also directs provincial and municipal customs departments to focus on reviewing and grasping the situation of tax collection and tax debt management in each subordinate branch.

Long An Customs revenue collection decreases 22.5% VCN – According to the Long An Customs Department, in the first quarter of 2020, the revenue ...

At the same time, the customs units need to review, inspect and detect violations in the field of goods classification and determination of the value or origin of the goods to implement retrospective collection and tax assessment, contribute to increasing budget revenue, strengthening management, fighting trade fraud and smuggling via price, code, C/O, tax exemption, reduction, refund, inspection, post-customs clearance inspection, investigation for anti-smuggling for import and export enterprises with high value and high tax rates, imported goods of enterprises from suspicious markets; goods entitled to special preferential tax rates, goods subject to tax exemption, tax refund for inspecting and promptly detecting violationsand collecting tax arrears for the budget.