One-time consultations: Enterprises interested, but not much

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Imported wine inspected by customs officers. Photo: T.H

Low participation

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Customs, one reform in the process of carrying out customs procedures is to consult once, which is stipulated by the Ministry of Finance in Clause 14, Article 1 of Circular No. 39/2018/ TT-BTC, issued on April 20, 2018.

Under this provision, "During the time of customs clearance, the customs declarer requests the customs office to apply the consultation results of the previous consultation for the subsequent export and import" on conditions that apply to "information and data to check the customs value of imported and exported goods, suggest a one-time consultation compared to identical goods, similarly, the results of consultations have not changed.”

This regulation is to limit enterprises having to conduct multiple price consultations with the customs authorities but the results of determining tax calculation values ​​remain unchanged.

On August 31, 2018, the Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department issued Decision No. 2153 / QD-HQHCM decentralising the customs departments to consult and consult once, using the results many times for lots of export and import goods subject to consultations arising at provincial branches according to current regulations on tax calculation values.

At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Customs decentralises branches to conduct one-time consultations, so that the Department level (through the Import-Export Tax Department) will carry out the inspection of the documents and the results of the first consultation at the branch before applying it for subsequent consultations.

After more than 7 months of implementing the one-time price consultation operation (from September 1, 2018 to March 28, 2019), there were only 17 applications for one-time consultations by 14 enterprises submitted by the Sub-Departments to Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department. Through inspection of documents, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department accepted 5 dossiers.

Evaluating the effectiveness of one-time consultation, using the results many times in the past, leaders of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department said that the consultations at the branches were too few. However, it has not brought practical results yet, creating a breakthrough in administrative procedure reforms in order to facilitate enterprises in the field of tax calculation prices.

Fix the problem

Analyzing the causes of consultations, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department said that the subjective cause is that the regulations on one-time consultations and the use of consultation results are still general and not specific, so problems arise in implementation. In addition, some departments have not focused on the effectiveness of one-time consultations, considering that one-time consultations and normal consultations are the same, so do not invest much time to study and look more closely for consultations once. Therefore, most of the consultations at the branch are not tight, and many errors occur when submitting the documents to the Department of Inspection.

Regarding objective reasons, many enterprises carry out customs procedures through the service of rent declaration or through customs agents (enterprises assigning digital signatures to customs agents), so they do not know the regulations on price consultation.

Some enterprises providing customs clearance services do not want to cut the cost of receiving services from shippers, so they do not want to conduct consultations at a one-time price.

According to Ms. Pham Thi Leo, Deputy Head of the Customs Branch of Sai Gon Port, Area I, most enterprises do procedures at Cat Lai port without going through customs clearance agents, but only through the customs clearanceservice, specifically through the staff to hire, so the implementation of consultations by appointment companies is very misleading, not effective.

Obtaining a one-time price consultation, on the side of enterprises, the regulation of constant price is one of the things to be consulted once; it is very difficult for businesses, besides, the result of accepting the price consultation once is very short, currently only valid for 60 days.

In order to have effective solutions to carry out the price consultation service once, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has conducted a survey of enterprises with large tax payments, and many imported goods are eligible for consultation once.

Survey results show that some enterprises do not know the regulations on consultation price once; enterprises that know the regulations on consultation price once but have not proposed to implement for the following reasons –the time limit for application of consultation results is too short; shipping unit prices fluctuate frequently, so the tax calculation value changes, it is not possible to consult once.

Some enterprises said that one-time consultation or normal consultation is not as important as the tax calculation price determined by the Customs, so they are not interested.

Pricing consultations to build consensus between Customs and businesses VCN- With the motto “the business community understands the requirements of Customs and Customs understands the needs ...

Representatives of Kho Do Trading Services Co., Ltd said enterprises often do procedures to import wine products through Saigon port area IV. Recently, with the guidance of the Department, the company has made a dossier to apply for one-time consultation for imported wine. However, the consultation price is not accepted by Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department as a one-time consultation price for subsequent import shipments. According to the representative of this enterprise, in fact, the enterprises sign a purchase contract by year, but the price for purchasing goods is seasonal, so it is difficult to have stable prices in the long term, meeting the conditions to be taken price consultation once.

From the above shortcomings, the enterprise proposed that the Ministry of Finance clearly stipulate the documents for presentation and the time limit for using the results of consultations one time, and some enterprises proposed the time-limit for applying the one-time consultation results to 365 days; and allow businesses to choose the consulting time.