Managers will take fully responsibility if they let enterprises “reduce” price

ccording to Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghiep, Deputy Manager of HCMC Customs Department, from early of June till now, bad tax debt could not be recovered by each Sub-Department which was issued the decision to tax standard in post clearance audit for calculating incurred tax valuation, the total is about 83 billion VND and hard to recover. The main reason is from newly established enterprises. They do mass imports and declare a low price then they shut down their operations and hide from Customs inspection. Sub-Departments need to enhance their responsibility and determine in order to prevent this situation. So that, it will avoid the anger of business community about unfair competition that causes destabilization of the market.

To limit the situation where enterprises take advantage of clearance policy for commercial fraud and unrecovered bad debt, HCMC Customs Department suggested leaders of each unit promote to coordinate between professional teams within Sub-Departments, Sub-Department and Post Clearance Audit Sub-Department, Sub-Department and Customs Enforcement Team; between Sub-Department and Tax Department, and the HCMC Planning and Investment Department in order to track down the enterprises who avoid paying tax or shut down operations. Managers of Sub-Departments have to take full responsibility if they let this situation happen which causes losses of State revenue.

For the incurred debt when setting tax standard, managers of Sub-Departments direct units to focus on collecting tax by searching enterprises in order to collect debt for State revenue. In case where the enterprises are hidden and did not operate in registered headquarters, Customs will cooperate with the Tax Department and HCMC Planning and Investment Department to execute by jurisdiction.

HCMC Customs Department believes that these solutions are just for temporary management when enterprises take advantage of weak spot of clearance policy for commercial fraud. Currently, enterprises follow Article 25, Circular No. 38/2015 / TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance to decide “not to agree to consult” when receiving a request from the Customs agency. Therefore, the documents must be cleared according to the declared prices of the enterprise and transferred to post clearance audit unit. Sub-Departments issue a decision to invite the enterprise come to the Customs office but enterprises delay or change the inspection day for continuing import. In order to prevent this issue, HCMC Customs Department proposed to General Department of Customs to research and suggest to the Ministry of Finance for considering and amending Circular No. 38/2015 / TT-BTC March 25^th 2015 as following:

For enterprises which have been operating for less than 2 years or have violated Customs Law under the jurisdiction of Department level; for goods clearance, these enterprises must pay the assurance and lodge to the account the equivalent amount to the reference price.

According to the current regulations for consulting rejected declared price, enterprises have to do an additional declaration and Customs will supervise in 5 days. if in this period the enterprises does not pay additional tax, Customs will accept the declared price, clear the goods and transfer documents to post clearance audit units. So it needs to clearly define the consultancy and post clearance audit as 2 independent areas with equal importance. Therefore, when doing consultation in order to propose to shorten the time from 30 days to 20 days and regulations, Customs need to issue a tax assessment decision when rejecting declared prices, update tax on the centralized accounting system and enterprises will have the obligation to pay tax, then if they disagree then exercise their right to appeal under the law.

Previously, HCM City Customs Department directed the department immediately implement solutions: Where goods importers declare lower cost than the current reference price and databases available on Customs agency, the Head of a Department of Customs shall direct the operation teams to perform checks on the risk management system for classifying businesses. If companies are ranked Grade 6 and 7, a decision will be issued directing post-clearance checks as soon as possible. If the enterprise does not comply with the time limit for checking, the Customs Branch will base on the Article 142 paragraph 4 item c Circular No. 38/2015 / TT-BTC dated March 25th 2015 of the Ministry of Finance to issue decisions on tax assessment, and enter data into the centralized accounting system for unregistered businesses next shipment.

If the inspection time is come but the enterprises have document to postpone the inspection time, Sub Department will direct the Duty Management team to inform to Operation team for supervision. Customs will stop clearance if enterprise continues to register the next consignments. Customs Sub-Department invite enterprise come to office and direct Post clearance audit units to work immediately in order to have conclusion about price for tax calculation, issue announcement about result of post clearance audit , update date to centralized accounting system so that enterprise will pay additional tax (if they was rejected declared price).