Businesses brought forward several issues that hinder their smooth operations, including classification of goods for import and export, certificate of origin for imported goods, procedures to pre-determine commodity codes, enforcement of tac payment, and measures to temporarily ban of travelling to other countries.
The HCMC Customs Department provided corresponding responses to all of the inquiries above with detailed explanation and solutions.
Regarding the classification of unlisted goods and pre-determination of commodity codes in the issued lists, businesses are advised to strictly follow application legal regulations. After customs clearance, import-export organizations should send a written requests to relevant ministries (such as the Industry & Trade Ministry, the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry) as a foundation for the cooperation with the Finance Ministry to update these products in the classification system.
The HCMC Customs Department clarified that certificates of origin can be issued either by authorized government agencies or by the businesses themselves. However, the Department emphasized that many businesses have been found to issue non-compliant certificates, leading to delays in customs clearance and potential loss of preferential tariff treatment.
Statistics from the Department reveal that since the beginning of this year, it has handled 918 law violation cases with a value of over VND2.2 trillion (US$86.4 million), and fined law breakers VND17 billion ($668,000).
Until March 2024, more than 4,800 businesses still had overdue tax debts with an amount of VND1.8 trillion ($70.7 million). Notably, there are a number of debts dating back about 20-30 years related to processing and export manufacturing enterprises.
Therefore, the HCMC Customs Department implements measures to enforce tax debts, including temporary country exit bans for company directors or legal representatives of enterprises in debt. These measures have proven effective in prompting businesses to fulfill their tax obligations. The department further clarified that once the outstanding tax amount is paid, the exit ban is lifted within 24 working hours.
