Customs: Strong IT application, effective anti-revenue loss

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Director General Nguyen Van Can delivered a speech at the Conference. Photo: Q.Hung

Reviewing the state budget collection in the first 3 months of the year and proposing specific solutions to fulfil the 2019 state budget target were of concern at the Conference.

Director of Import and Export Tax Department Luu Manh Tuong said that the total state budget revenue from import and export activities in the first quarter of 2019 reached VND 83.25 trillion, equal to 27.7% of the estimate, equal to 26.39% of the target, up by 21.13% (equivalent to VND 14.54 trillion) over the same period of 2018.

The Director analysed that this result was due to the sharp increase in revenues from imported CBU cars and crude oil.

However, the revenue from cars was unstable due to problems in Decree 116, so when they were removed, enterprises massively imported cars, leading to a spike in revenue. It is forecast that the demand will gradually decrease and become stable. On the other hand, according to recent years, the growth rate of state budget revenue in the second quarter was often lower than the average annual growth rate. Therefore, Customs needs more efforts in managing the state revenue and creating favourable conditions for enterprises.

Mr. Tuong proposed a series of solutions for the future: strengthening customs management work to promptly detect acts of smuggling and trade frauds causing state revenue loss. In particular, focusing on reviewing the list of price risk to identify suspicious signs; conducting consultations and post-clearance inspection effectively; focusing on classification and tax application. Reviewing and inspecting tax exemption cases, especially cases of tax exemption for investment in preferential projects; focusing on analysing and assessing risk after clearance for goods through the Green channel to conduct post-clearance audit or specialized inspection to promptly report to customs clearance unit, avoiding repeat errors; collecting recoverable debts, and preventing debts arising after inspection and post clearance audit; debts, especially debts after inspection and clearance audit; handling debts in inspection.

Mr. Tuong emphasized: Customs municipal and provincial Customs Departments should closely monitor the actual situation; especially the revenue source, the basis to develop appropriate solutions suitable to their locality, and report to the General Department for timely settlement.

Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department Dinh Ngoc Thang said that the unit has made efforts to implement solutions of the Directive on the State budget collection, despite the significant increase in revenue from imported CBU cars, the potential for revenue in following months are not remarkable. Thus, the Department will also focus on solutions such as reform, modernization and enhancing Customs business partnership, building a centralized information system to manage all levels, and deploying of logistics, accelerating customs clearance, reducing congestion and supporting businesses.

According to Director of Hai Phong Customs Department Nguyen Tien Loc, the unit always attach importance to control the value of imported goods, regularly review imported commodities and renew the list of risk

Agreeing with the solutions proposed by the General Department of Customs in implementing the state budget task, Deputy Minister Vu Thi Mai emphasized that the Customs Department should closely follow the direction of the General Director of Customs at the Directive on State budget collection together with specific solutions proposed by of the Import-Export Tax Department. The Customs sector strives to exceed targets assigned by the Ministry of Finance.

At the Conference, the General Director directed that excluding the objective factor, the Customs sector needs to carefully discuss the factor of anti-revenue loss, key inspection of codes, tax rates and customs valuation, the application of tariffs and policies and implement the solutions given in the Directive on state budget collection.

To this end, the Customs branches and departments need to assess in detail the achievements and shortcomings, the activeness of the units in the implementation of state budget collection, determination of price and code; correct errors in the verification and determination of value code and enhance the combat of revenue loss.

Applying IT to all customs operations

Another point mentioned at the Conference was the further improvement of customs supervision and the application of information technology (IT) systems to all customs operations to improve efficiency and to facilitate import and export activities.

Commenting on building new modules to meet the requirements of state management on customs in the future, Deputy Director of Customs IT and Statistic Department Le Duc Thanh said that the Department is currently restructuring the whole IT system of the Customs sector. The new system will add two new blocks which are integrated smart block and user management block.

In addition to continuing the approved projects in the 5-year plan on IT application of the General Department of Customs in the period 2016-2020, the Customs sector will supplement the projects and tasks of IT investment such as: building mobile applications to support customs clearance anytime - anywhere - by all means; building a centralized database for enterprise information management; developing a system to manage the internal inspection, complaints, denunciations and anti-corruption; building integrated modules to support customs officers in duty performance; building a professional module to support operation; building software to manage the sampling, analysis and inspection of goods, which is integrated with other systems of customs; building a customs management system for import and export goods and goods in transit sent via international express delivery services.

Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department stated that IT application in customs management is very important. Currently, the Department has to handle a significant volume of work, so IT application to integrate many operational steps is really necessary, greatly enhancing Customs operation and management.

Director of Hai Phong Customs Department said that the integration of Customs software is necessary, 21 current management software programmes need to be standardized into processes, synchronized and updated to best support operations of local Customs units.

Deputy Minister of Finance stated that the General Department of Customs needs to focus on restructuring the IT system, however, there needs to be a standard process. In particular, the local Customs units play an important role in consultation to build this system.

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Director General Nguyen Van Can said the General Department of Customs will report to the leadership of the Ministry of Finance on restructuring the IT system. Therefore, it is necessary for provincial and municipal customs departments to perform synchronous management and update all Customs operations to the system for transparent monitoring.