New way of tax fraud from gifts

Low rates declaration to fraudulent tax

Inspection - Investigation Department - Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City has just checked and discovered that Khoa - Vy Trade and Service Company Limited has mislead the newspaper to cheat tax through gifts.

According to the inspection and investigation department, the company has opened many customs declaration forms for gifts according to type H11 declaration, as items declared as stainless steel kitchenware, pots, pans, metal kitchen utensils that were imported from Japan and France. Most declarations are systematically redundant.

Through inspection, the Inspection - Investigation Department found that most of the named shippers were an individual with a Vietnamese name; sometimes the shipper was an agent from France who had a freight forwarding business as an International A.O.P. The weight of shipments is less than 100 kg, the value declared for shipments ranges from less than 2 million VND to less than 10 million VND, but the actual value of these shipments is much higher than declared. Typically, 91 kg of gift baskets imported from Japan for a system of clearing the Green channel. Detecting the problem, the Customs has ordered to stop unexpected clearance to check the actual goods. The result of the inspection had no items of "Kitchen shelf" as declared. Real imported goods are kitchen utensils, such as: cooking pots, pans, toasters, pots, rice cookers, frying pans without oil... This lot was declared as worth over 5.1 VND million, import tax and VAT of over 1 million VND. After being stopped at customs clearance, enterprises declared to add the value of goods lot at over 40 million VND, import tax and VAT of more than 14 million VND. Thus, only 1 lot of gifts, the tax difference increased to over 13 million VND compared with the original declaration.

At the same time, the shipping company claimed freight charges collected in Vietnam of more than 7.3 million VND (wrong with the shipping document which was the freight paid). The customs value (taxable value) of this lot is estimated at 32 million VND, the amount of tax payable is the import tax of over 10.5 million VND (the difference is 9.5 million VND higher than the tax paid in comparison with the declared tax).

Similarly, the lot of 52 kg imported from France with the value declared on the Invoice of 80 Euro has been adjusted with the information of the value of goods and goods on the manifest from 80 Euro to 441,32 Euro. The name of the goods was transferred from kitchen shelves to milk powder, coffee, bags, sports shoes, etc.

From the above-mentioned incident, the Inspection and Customs Department has worked with the Customs Sub-Department to work with the legal representative of the company. This person certifies that all consignments sent to the company are ordered by individuals in Vietnam. Freight is paid in Vietnam. The actual value of the goods is greater than the declared value in the bill and manifest shipping. Commodities are a variety of items, including food, food additives and kitchenware of all kinds.

At present, the Customs Sub-Department of Express Courts is carrying out the customs procedures for dealing with violations of wrong-importing customs declaration, causing loss of tax revenue and violation of import conditions for specialized inspection goods.

Fraud Warning

According to the Department of Inspection - Investigation - Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City, the imported goods of the Company Khoa - Vy from Japan and France are the key lines of consumer goods, high value goods. Although the gifts are sent to the company, but the sender is an individual’s name in Vietnam. However, for a long time the shipment was declared with the same name as "Metal kitchen shelf" and the value of the declaration was low, so the VNACCS/ VICS system threaded the products through the green channel and allowed clearance.

From this reality, to perform the function of State management over customs, combat smuggling and tax fraud, combat the import of goods evading specialized inspection by taking advantage of customs procedures to import gifts, the Department of Customs of Ho Chi Minh City has instructed the units to supplement the Department's smuggling prevention plan on tricks, methods and ways of importing goods that have been channeled Green or Yellow, without checking (including H11 gifts and business types). To provide detailed guidance, detailing the method of reviewing, statistics and analysis of risk signs for customs declarations cleared through the Green channel so as to identify key shipments for prior inspection by scanners, or transfer the actual test stream.

The Risk Management Department shall guide the sub-departments to take professional measures to identify key shipments, key routes and key customs declarants with signs/manifestations of regularly declaring the same goods names. Approved for the Green channel, the declared value is too low compared to the actual freight value (according to the carrier/ express delivery), the gift are to the company, but the person receiving them is a Vietnamese person. The Information Technology Department will guide the Sub-Departments on how to look up the Green channel Customs declarations to serve the post-customs clearance inspection and gather information.

Customs Sub-Departments in particular, other border-gate Customs Sub-Departments shall, in general, have to base themselves on the functions and tasks of the teams to assign the task of reviewing, controlling and gathering information of the shipments that are allowed to pass through the green channel. When there are signs of suspicion, it is necessary to expeditiously carry out control measures (which can be screened in advance...) in order to identify goods under customs supervision. The Import-Export Tax Department shall guide the customs sub-departments to check the customs value for goods declared under the form of gifts. This is to disallow the advantage taking in the form of gifts by declaring too low a value compared to reality for the purpose of tax fraud, and spy risk management criteria. The Customs Control Team shall set up specialists to fight and eliminate lines of abuse of policies and loopholes in the customs procedures mechanism applicable to gifts and presents for smuggling and tax fraud.