Supplement and Significantly Increase Administrative Penalties for Customs Declaration Violations

Supplement, substantially increase administrative penalties for customs declaration violations - Illustrative photo

 Third Draft of the Decree on Administrative Sanctions in the Field of Customs

To be specific, according to Article 8 of this Draft, the penalty levels for customs declaration violations are stipulated as follows:

1. A fine of 1,000,000 VND to 2,000,000 VND for the following acts:

- Declaring incorrectly compared to reality about the name, type, quantity, origin of humanitarian aid goods, and non-refundable aid goods approved by the competent authority; (Currently, this act is fined from 500,000 VND to 1,000,000 VND)

- Declaring incorrectly compared to reality about the name, type, origin, quantity, quality, value, and code of taxable import goods but not affecting the tax amount to be paid; except as stipulated in point a clause 1, clause 2, clause 3 of this Article, Article 9, Article 14, clause 3, clause 4 Article 23 of this Decree; (This is a newly added act in the Draft compared to Decree 127/2013/ND-CP and Decree 45/2016/ND-CP)

- Failing to declare in the customs declaration the special relationship between the buyer and the seller without affecting the customs value. (This is a newly added act in the Draft compared to Decree 127/2013/ND-CP and Decree 45/2016/ND-CP)

2. A fine of 2,000,000 VND to 4.000.000 VND for declaring incorrectly compared to reality about the name, type, quantity, quality, value, and origin of goods in one of the following cases:

- Goods in transit, transshipment, goods from abroad into transshipment ports or from transshipment ports abroad;

- Goods used and destroyed in non-tariff zones.

(Currently, the fine for these two acts is from 1,000,000 VND to 3,000,000 VND.)

3. A fine of 3,000,000 VND to 5,000,000 VND for declaring incorrectly compared to reality about the name, type, origin, quantity, quality, and value of export-import goods exempt from tax, not subject to tax in accordance with the law, except goods brought into, out of bonded warehouses, duty-free warehouses. (Currently, Decree 127 and Decree 45 do not exclude this provision)

4. A fine of 5,000,000 VND to 10,000,000 VND for declaring incorrect information about flights for departing and arriving aircraft. (This is a newly added penalized act in the Draft compared to Decree 127 and Decree 45)

5. A fine of 20,000,000 VND to 40,000,000 VND for the act of declaring and completing customs procedures but not exporting or exporting less than declared customs declarations about the name, quantity, and value of export goods; except for export goods which are processed products, export production products, exported products of export processing enterprises, temporary import - re-export business goods. (Currently, Decree 127 and Decree 45 stipulate this fine level for false declarations about the name, quantity, weight, and value of export goods)

6. A fine of half the prescribed penalty range in clauses 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 above for the corresponding violation acts that customs declarants self-detect and declare additionally past the prescribed time limit. (This is a newly added content in this Draft compared to Decree 127 and Decree 45)

7. Violations under clause 3, clause 5 above leading to underpayment or increased exemption, reduction, refund, non-collection of tax or tax evasion, or policy violations on export-import goods management will be penalized according to Article 9 or Article 14, Article 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 of this Draft. (Currently, Decree 127 and Decree 45 do not stipulate for policy violations on export-import goods management)

8. Violations about quantities mentioned in the above clauses where the infringing goods' value does not exceed 10% of the actual export-import goods value but the maximum is not more than 10,000,000 VND, will be penalized accordingly as prescribed in clauses 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 mentioned above.

Note: The above penalty regulations do not apply to cases where the actual export-import goods do not match the customs declaration about the name or quantity without documents to correct the declarations as prescribed.

Thus, it can be seen that, compared to the current regulations in Decree 127 and Decree 45, this Draft has added many more acts of customs declaration violations to be administratively sanctioned, and also significantly increased the fines for current violations.

Nguyen Trinh

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