The time of submitting licence when implementing Customs procedures will be specified

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Operational activity in Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch. Photo: N.L

According to Clause 1, Article 4 of Decree 187/2013/ND-CP, “Traders that wish to Import or Export goods subject to import or export licenses shall obtain the licenses”.

On the basis of above regulation, specialized management agencies will stipulate the time of submitting the license to Customs agency in relevant legal normative documents. However, the fact that most of these documents do not stipulate the time of submitting the license. Some documents stipulate the time in general and do not specify such as “when implementing Customs procedures” or “when implementing Import procedures”.

According to Vietnam Customs, many legal documents regulate that import and export goods are subject to license. Among them, documents stipulate the time of submitting the licence and other documents do not specify; some documents stipulate but are understood in different ways (for example the regulation “when implementing Customs procedures” may be understood that Customs agency accepts the licence is submitted from registration of Customs declaration to prior Customs Clearance or right after the implementation of Customs procedures or submission of Customs dossier).

The unspecific regulations cause difficulty for Customs agency to determine the time of accepting the license, some cases lead to disputes between the Customs agency and declarants.

Circular 12/2015/TT-BTC of Ministry of Industry and Trade on automatic import license of steel products is an example. The Circular stipulates that importer or exporter must obtain the license when implementing Customs procedures but it does not stipulate the specific time of implementing Customs procedures (because Customs process includes stages from Customs declaration to Customs clearance). This causes difficulty in handling import steel shipments in the past times due to the change of policy (applying Safeguard tariff)

In order to be applied former tax rate, enterprises must obtain the license at the time of Customs declaration and before the new policy takes effect. However, enterprises registered Customs declaration before the new policy takes effect but the license is issued/ submitted after the effective date of the new policy, the former tax rate is not approved by the Customs agency. Because the provision is not specific, it is difficult for Customs to determine a reasonable solution.

Therefore, in order to handle shortcomings in the past times, the draft revised 08/2015/ND-CP is considered to supplement a regulation on the time of submitting the license when implementing Customs procedures.

Consultation for draft revised Decree 08/2015 / ND-CP VCN - On July 18th, 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City, the Deputy Director General of Vietnam ...

Accordingly, import or export goods subject to the license issued by specialized management agency must obtain the license before registering the Customs declaration and must be fully fulfilled with license information on the Customs declaration under the guidance of the Ministry of Finance.

In the case where based on the code of goods, the Customs electronic data processing system does not identify goods subject to the license, the System accepts the declaration registration. When examining dossier, Customs agency has enough basis to determine goods subject to the license, but those goods did not obtain the license at the time of declaration registration, enterprises will be handled according to the provisions of the law on a penalty for administrative violation. The registered Customs declaration is not valid for carrying out customs procedures.