The General Administration of Customs recently issued the Announcement (Draft for Comment) of the General Administration of Customs on Relevant Matters Concerning the Fulfillment of Reasonable Review Obligations by Customs Declaration Enterprises, which systematically clarified the “reasonable review obligations” of customs declaration enterprises for the first time. This move indicates that customs supervision is accelerating from “punishment afterwards” to “pre-audit”, and foreign trade, freight forwarding and cross-border logistics chains will face stricter compliance supervision.
The new regulations clarify the eight major review directions, including:
● Verify the qualification of the entrusting party and the authenticity of the agency relationship.
● The name, quantity and specifications of the goods are completely consistent with the documents.
● Do not blindly accept the HS code provided by customers and check the regulatory conditions.
● Check the declared price to prevent underreporting and concealment.
● Verify the authenticity of the license and certificate of origin.
● Confirm that the consignor’s information is consistent with the documents.
● Review the rationality of the logical relationship of each column of the customs declaration form.
● Establish a law-abiding convenience and illegal punishment mechanism.
According to the exposure draft, the core of the new regulations is to strengthen the whole process audit of the authenticity and logic of “people, orders and goods”. In the future, customs declaration enterprises will no longer simply “record and declare”, but will have to take the responsibility of auditing, identifying and checking, and must actively identify abnormal information and take the responsibility of auditing obviously unreasonable declarations. This has completely changed the traditional mode of “formal review” in the past and pushed the industry from “superficial compliance” to “substantive compliance”.
With the implementation of new regulations on reasonable review of customs declaration, industry supervision has turned to ex ante risk control. For enterprises with deep-rooted compliance and professional audit and risk management and control capabilities, it will usher in new development opportunities. The industry has accelerated the reshuffle, competitors who rely on gray operations have gradually withdrawn, and the market competition environment has been continuously optimized. By virtue of perfect operating system and risk control capability, compliant enterprises can not only greatly reduce operational risks, clarify responsibility boundaries, but also enjoy credit dividends such as lower inspection rate and faster customs clearance efficiency. At the same time, the professional value has become more and more prominent, and the bargaining power and customer stickiness have improved simultaneously, officially entering the fast lane of high-quality development.
Source: market information
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