PCA often focuses on enterprises with signs of violations

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Leaders of Ho Chi Minh City Customs at the dialogue conference with American business community. Photo: T. H

As the first unit in the Customs sector holding a dialogue conference with the American business community in 2018, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has received the appreciation from businesses and leaders of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). Chairman of AmCham Mark Gillin shared that in the early year, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department organized a conference to guide the new policies and procedures, and answering the questions from enterprises towards the goal of trade facilitation and improvement of investment environment. Vietnam's exports to the United States doubled in five years, from US $ 20.3 billion in 2012 to US $ 46.5 billion in 2017.

At the meeting, US companies raised a lot of questions related to supervision, management, import-export duties, post-clearance audit (PCA), goods processed and produced for export.

Regarding the PCA, Deputy Director in charge of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, Dinh Ngoc Thang said that the Customs Department is now implementing modern Customs management, changing from pre-inspection to post-inspection through application of risk management. For the cases of PCA, the Customs authority shall draw up an annual inspection plan which shall be approved by the General Department of Customs before implementation in order to avoid duplication. However, besides the approved plan, the Customs Department will inspect some specific cases, for example, focusing on enterprises with signs of violations.

In addition, according to the current regulations, for goods processed and produced for export, enterprises are permitted to take the initiative in the production and declaration, the Customs only receives annual settlement reports. However, recently, through PCA, the Customs discovered a number of enterprises which incorrectly declared the wastage rate. Consequently, those enterprises were fined and must pay tax arrears.

The Deputy Director Dinh Ngoc Thang talked with AMCHAM leaders

In order to avoid errors in declaration of wastage rate, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department Nguyen Huu Nghien noted that for the actual wastage rate in the production, enterprises must declare according to the actual rate and do not need to declare 3% as per regulation on wastage rate limit. In cases where the wastage rate is over 3%, even over 20%, enterprises must declare the actual rate. How to deal with this, the Customs will clarify during the inspection for enterprises.

Concerning archives, documents and records for the PCA, the leader of the PCA Branch said that the PCA is a modern Customs management system by transferring from pre-inspection to post-inspection. Information collection prior to the PCA is the content specified in the process. Customs has many ways to collect information that do not require businesses to bring paper records to the Customs office. Upon inspection, the Customs will request enterprises to provide dossiers related to inspection contents within 5 years.

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At the conference, the leader of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department was committed to continuing administrative reform and Customs modernization in order to facilitate and cut by 50% goods clearance times and reduce costs for enterprises. At the same time, gathering common errors in order to warn enterprises.