Ho Chi Minh Customs Department prevents revenue losses effectively

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Smuggled goods seized by Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department at Cat Lai Port. Photo: T.H

Collect tax arrears of tens of billions VND from post clearance audit

Over the past time, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has discovered several cases violating regulations on customs procedures through the post clearance audit, so it issued decisions on tax arrears collection contributing to the State budget.

Among detected violations, there were tax arrears and fines of tens of billions VND. In the case of G.P Garment Company (Ho Chi Minh City), the Post Clearance Audit Department detected this company has not complied with regulations on Export Production Regime. The company imported goods for export production but did not directly produce products and transferred a part or all of imported goods to other companies for processing and then received the products for export. The value of infringing goods was determined by Customs to be more than VND 164 billion. Ho Chi Minh City Customs issued a decision on administrative violation with a fine of more than VND 7.9 billion and collected tax arrears of VND 39.5 billion for G.P Garment Company.

Ho Chi Minh City has also detected tax fraud through false declaration of HS codes and tax rate of import-export goods.

By conducting a post clearance audit, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department detected that F.E Company Limited (Tan Uyen Town, Binh Duong) falsely declared the HS code and tax rate of "Chemicals of foam industry" with the value of infringing goods more than VND 29 billion. The Post Clearance Audit fined and collected tax arrears of nearly VND 1.6 billion. Or the case of R. Animal Feed Joint Stock Company (Dong Nai) imported "Quantum TR5000L, Quantum Blue 5L, Feed Additive Disodium 5" with value of nearly VND 17 billion but it falsely declared the HS code and tax rate of imported goods with a tax fraud amount of nearly VND 550 million. In addition, Customs fined this company nearly VND 110 million

Prevent tax losses at border gates

Not only increasing revenue from post clearance audit, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has focused on preventing tax losses at border gates via the fight against smuggling and price fraud.

Recently, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has detected many cases of exporting goods with incorrect declarations of goods names for tax fraud. In the case of Chi Lam Wood Processing Co., Ltd (in Tan Uyen, Hai Duong), this firmregistered eightdeclarations to export 111 containers with a tax rate of 0%. Through physical inspection, Customs detected the actual exported goods were lumber rubber with an export tax rate of 25%. The value of the shipment was nearly VND 23 billion andthe tax arrears weremore than VND 5.7 billion. In the beginning of March, the department fined this company VND 1.149 billion and collected tax arrears of VND 5.7 billion.

At the end of March, Sai Gon Seaport Customs Branch of Zone 1 fined Đ.S Co., Ltd (in Tan Binh, Ho Chi Minh City) more than VND 136 million and collected VND 700 million because this company imported raw material for manufacturing fertiliser but incorrectly declared the HS codes, leading to insufficient tax payable.

With a huge volume of imported goods, including many consumer goods, management of taxable value for import-export goods has been given special attention by Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department. In 2020, Customs continues to identify suspicious signs and conducts price rulings according to current import-export tariff, including controlling commodities with high tax rate and turnover. In addition, the branch will focus on analysing and intensifying inspection for commodities classified into the Green channel subject to the list of prices and codes management with suspicious signs; for commodities declared as made in Viet Nam but in fact the exporting country is not Vietnam to enjoy preferential tax rates.

Facing the sharp decrease in the Ho Chi Minh City’s revenue due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to creatingfavourable conditions for import-export activities, increasing revenue, effective anti-revenue loss has greatly contributed to help Ho Chi Minh City Department to fulfill the State revenue target this year. As of April 15, the department increased revenue by VND 90 billion via the anti-tax loss. Through price rulings, the department rejected transaction value for nearly 2,000 declaration forms, upnearly VND 75 billion in revenue; the remaining increased revenue via post clearance audit at border gates and goods classification.