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Customs operation at North Thang Long Customs Branch (Ha Noi Customs Department). Photo: N.L

Specify problems arising in reality

For customs procedures, contents are expected to be amended related to additional declarations after customs clearance in case of delivering goods with aninsufficient amount. The current provision only stipulates dossiers and specific processes for the additional declaration after customs clearance in case of delivering goods of aninsufficient amount and goods that have not been taken out or have been partly taken out of the Customs controlled area, thus customs branches have nobasis to instruct enterprises.

To instruct units in carrying out customs procedures, the General Department of Vietnam Customs proposes amending and supplementing in the direction of specifying dossiers and procedures for two cases. The additional declaration after customs clearance in case of delivering goods in an insufficient amount and goods that have not been taken out or have been partly taken out of the Customs controlled area and additional declaration after customs clearance in case of delivering goods in insufficient amount and goods that have been completely taken out of the Customs controlled area.

In cases of cancellation of customs declaration form, current regulations have not specified the following cases: Customs declaration forms are registered but have not yet completed customs procedures, customs declarants refuse to receive goods and re-export under customs supervision as per provisions in Clause 4, Article 48 of Decree No.08/2015/ND-CP amended and supplemented in Clause 21, Article 1 of Decree No. 59/2018/ND-CP. For handling registered customs declaration forms, the Customs guides that after the re-export is conducted, the customs shall transfer the customs declaration form to the manual processing status for liquidation on the system. However, to be transparent with customs declarants, the Customs still notify the status of cancellation of the customs declaration form for enterprises.

Current regulations have not specified the case of customs declaration forms that have not gone through customs procedures in case of organisationsand individuals in Vietnam that receive the transfer of cars from subjects entitled to incentive and immunities, but subjects entitled to incentives and immunities (car assigners) and organisationsand individuals in Vietnam(car assignees) cancelled their sales contracts.

Remove obstacles in checking permit

The draft circular amends and stipulates regulations on checking the import and export permit, and specialised inspection results in the direction of creating favourable conditions for enterprises. Current regulations provide inspection and monitoring subtraction of quantities of goods stated in the import and export permits; inspection results or notification for exemption from specialised inspection. Additionally, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued a document guiding re-issuance of the monitoring sheet in case of the loss of the sheet.

In recent times, implementing the Government's Resolution 19, ministries and agencies have reformed administrative procedures and changed inspection methods, the list of goods subject to inspection has been cutand transferred from pre-inspection to post audit and many administrative procedures are carried out electronically.

However, there are some problems in practice. Specifically, the permit and specialisedinspection results are issued via the National Single Window Portal. Currently, the IT system does not meet requirements of monitoring, auto-subtracting, permit liquidity, inspection results, so Customs cannot identify whetherthe shipment is exported or imported under the permit and inspection results or not. There are situations that enterprises have used the permit to import many times and in excess of the goods quantity stated in the permit.

Circular 38/2015/TT-BTC also provides that the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued the document to certify the granted permit in the National Single Window Portal for enterprises to use the monitoring sheet in case of using a permit for multiple export and import times, however, with 178 administrative procedures processed on the National Single Window, the implementation of this provision is inconsistent with administrative procedure reform (enterprises are issued e-permits but paper permitsarerequired), increasing procedures and workload for Customs.

In addition, regarding inspection of food safety for imported goods, Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP also provides reduced inspection. At the same time, the Customs authority shall be assigned to randomly select up to 5% of the total of imported goods subject to reduced inspection within ayear to check the dossier after the goods owner submits the dossier to customs to apply for the reduced inspection. However, the decree does not stipulate inspection conducted by the Customs to give feedback on the shipments and commodities eligible for application of reduced inspection in Clause 1, Article 17 of this decree. In fact, because there is no database on shipments and commodities subject to reduced inspection, identification ofthe shipments, imported goods subject to reduced inspection by the customs must be based on the inspection of dossiers submitted by the goods owner.

Therefore, the drafting committee proposed amending and supplementing regulations on reduction inspection as follows: Specifying the inspection, monitoring and subtracting permits under electronic methods; specifying goods subject to be exempt from State inspection of food safety or subject to food safety inspection, but reduced inspectionsareapplied.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs also plans to amend and supplement many contents related to customs procedures, supervision for export and import goods brought into and out of ports, warehouses, yards and sites; customs procedures for on-spot export and import goods and issues related to export taxes and tax administration for export and import goods.