The General Department of Customs has just issued an official dispatch requesting the directors of provincial and municipal customs departments to thoroughly grasp and direct their units to strengthen the inspection, supervision and control of goods traded via e-commerce.
Recently, imported goods traded via e-commerce have increased dramatically, with many e-commerce platforms appearing, bringing cheap goods to the Vietnamese market but not registered to operate in Vietnam or not yet announced on the e-commerce management system at online.gov.vn of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
According to regulations, cross-border online retail platforms with Vietnamese domain names, Vietnamese display language, or with more than 100,000 transactions a year from Vietnam must register their operations with the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
However, illegal imports still occur openly, posing risks of importing counterfeit goods, fake goods, goods that violate intellectual property rights, poor quality goods, goods that do not meet import requirements, or taking advantage of policies to evade taxes.
Faced with this situation, the customs branch at the import gate conducts a physical inspection of the goods according to regulations. The results of the physical inspection will be updated into the system or information on signs of law violations of the shipment will be transferred to the customs branch where the goods are transported to conduct an inspection to clearly identify the violation.
At the customs branch managing the location for gathering, inspecting and supervising postal and express delivery goods, the General Department of Customs requires not to carry out customs procedures for import declarations: not to declare information about the name of the website providing e-commerce services, the application providing e-commerce services, the name of the e-commerce website selling goods, the application selling goods in the "Notes" section for the declaration of low-value imported goods or in the "35. Other notes" box on the import declaration form HQ 2015/NK.
If information about websites providing e-commerce services, applications providing e-commerce services, e-commerce websites selling goods, and sales applications has been declared, but these websites and applications have not been registered to operate in Vietnam or have not been announced on the e-commerce management system at the Ministry of Industry and Trade's online.gov.vn website, they will not be approved.
Request to review all express delivery warehouses
In the official dispatch dated November 8, the General Department of Customs also requested to strengthen the inspection and determination of customs value: focusing on collecting information, analyzing, and identifying cases with signs of dividing goods into many small packages or falsely declaring values to match the value exempted from tax or exempted from specialized inspection.
In case of detecting acts of taking advantage of false declaration of value to evade tax or avoid specialized inspection policies, violations must be handled according to regulations.
Along with that, continuously review all warehouses rented by express delivery businesses at gathering locations, inspect and centrally monitor postal and express delivery goods in operation.
"If the conditions for inspection, supervision and control by the customs authority are not maintained, the competent authority must be notified to terminate the operation and revoke the warehouse code," the document stated.
