New regulations on origin determination are in force
VCN – On October 21, Circular 62/2019/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance, amending and supplementing a number of articles of Circular 38/2018/TT-BTC on determining the origin of imported and exported goods, came into force. Many new contents need to be noted to ensure the facilitation of goods clearance activities, while ensuring the control of the origin of export and import goods.
According to the Department of Customs Management Supervision (General Department of Customs), the General Department of Customs has organized training courses for civil servants nationwide and guided the skills of checking origin (C/O) to prevent fraud and counterfeiting of origin in order to effectively implement the new contents in this Circular.
Accordingly, in Article 1, 2 and 3 of Circular 62/2019/TT-BTC, the matters to be noted are the small differences which do not affect the validity of the certification of origin specified at point h, Clause 6, Article 15 are amended and supplemented as follows: description of goods on the certificate of origin conforms with the description of goods on the import customs declaration, actual imported goods that meet the origin criteria will be accepted.
The description of the goods on the certificate of origin is inconsistent with the description of the goods on the import customs declarations, the actual imported goods are not on the certification of origin of goods, the Customs authorities will reject the document of origin.
Describing the goods on the certificate of origin in accordance with the description of the goods on the import customs declaration, actual imported goods but the customs office has no basis to determine the goods, the customs agencies carry out verification procedures as prescribed.
In addition, during doing customs clearance, officials need to pay attention to the addition of point d, Clause 1, Article 22 of the refusal of certifying goods origin. Specifically, in case of having a certificate of origin at the time of carrying out the import procedures but the declarant does not declare the reference number, the date of issue or the case does not have the certificate of origin at the time of carrying out the procedures but the customs declarant does not declare submits the documents certifying the origin of goods later on the import customs declaration as prescribed. In case the declarant declared delayed submission of certificates of origin as prescribed, but additionally declares and submits documents certifying the origin of goods after the deadline, the customs authority will reject the origin certification as prescribed.
In addition, the important content of Circular 62/2019/TT-BTC is supplementary guidelines for determining the origin of the CPTPP Agreement. According to the Department of Customs Supervision and Control, during the procedure, the units should pay attention to the time of submission of certificates of origin of goods to apply special preferential tax rates. At the time of carrying out the import customs procedures, the customs declarant must submit to the customs office one of the following documents: A self-certification of goods origin (1 original); Certificate of origin (C/O) issued by the competent authorities of the exporting member country (1 original).
In case the declarant has not been declared for application of special preferential tax rates at the time of carrying out import customs procedures, in order to apply the special preferential tax rates, customs declarants must clearly state the origin of goods and submit documents certifying goods origin later on import customs declarations at the time of carrying out customs procedures; Additional declaration and submission of an original of the certificate of origin within twelve months from the date of registration of the customs declaration. Procedures for handling overpaid tax amounts are implemented comply with the law on tax administration.
In addition, the minimum information for documents certifying goods origin include: specify whether the certifier is an exporter or producer; name, address (including country), telephone number and email address of the certifier; name, address (including country), telephone number and email address of the exporter if the exporter is not a certifier; name, address (including country), telephone number and email address of the producer if the producer is not a certifier or exporter or if more than one producer is recorded “various”; name, address, email address and telephone number of the importer (if information about the importer is available).
The address of the importer must be from a member country of the CPTPP; description and HS code of the goods; origin criteria: specify the origin criteria that goods meet; duration; date and authorized signature.
Documents certifying the origin of goods must be issued in paper or electronic form. In case certification of goods origin not written in English, customs declarants must translate them into Vietnamese or English and take responsibility for the contents of the translations.
In the application of Circular 62/2019/TT-BTC, it is noted that the import and export customs declarations registered from January 14, 2019 to before the effective date of this Circular to apply the provisions of origin and tax rates under the CPTPP, the Government’s Decree No. 57/2019/ND-CP of June 26, 2019, issuing the preferential export tariff and special preferential import tariff for the implementation of the CPTPP period 2019-2022 and Clause 4, Article 1 of this Circular, except for the condition of declaring the reference number, date of issue or delay of declaration of goods origin certificates are declared on the import customs declaration. Customs declarants who have overpaid tax shall send a written request to the customs office where they register their declarations for handling according to regulations.
By N.Linh/Quynhlan