On  April 18, 2019, Vietnam Customs reported that on April 16, 2019, under the presidency of Deputy Director General Nguyen Duong Thai, the General Department of Customs held the first meeting on the revised contents of the draft Circular amending and supplementing Circular 39/2015/TT-BTC on customs value of imported and exported goods. The report stated:

According to the Import and Export Tax Department (General Department of Customs), Circular No. 39/2015 / TT-BTC dated March 15, 2015, regulating the customs value of imported and exported goods, after 4 years of implementation, fully transformed the technical contents on customs valuation of the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement into the national legal system and complied with Vietnam’s obligations as a WTO member.

At the same time, setting up a mechanism and management system for customs valuation for imported and exported goods from the General Department level to the Branch level, which clearly defines the responsibilities of each level for the valuation and inspection of Customs valuation both in customs clearance and post-clearance clearance.

Thereby, contributing significantly to speeding up customs clearance, reducing cargo congestion at customs branches, improving the effectiveness of control, combat against price fraud, and ensuring state revenue.

However, in addition to the positive impacts, the implementation of Circular No. 39/2015/TT-BTC also exposed limitations and shortcomings to be amended such as some concepts have not yet been defined in normative documents on customs value; regulations on principles, methods of imported and exported goods also have many different understandings, which makes it difficult for organizations and individuals in the study and implementation of customs valuation.

Therefore, Director of Import and Export Tax Department Luu Manh Tuong suggested that amendments and supplements to Circular 39/2015/TT-BTC on customs value of imported and exported goods will focus on four key groups:

The first group is general regulations: Supplementing some concepts, rights and obligations of customs authority in customs valuation.

The second group is principles and methods of customs valuation, focusing on two important contents: principles and methods of determining customs value for export goods and principles of determining customs value of imported goods in the order of methods.

The third group is customs valuation methods, which will be re-regulated and have many current regulations obstructed in practical implementation supplemented such as: method for determining transaction value; customs valuation for transaction value of similar imported goods; customs valuation for imported goods by deductive logic method; and adding regulations on customs valuation for a number of specialized imported and exported goods (goods with the use purpose changed for destruction; gifts and donations; non-payment goods).

The fourth group is the database. This group focuses on building, managing and using the risk management portfolio, which will change the management, instead of managing commodities, it will add risky enterprises.

Deputy General Director Nguyen Duong Thai emphasized, the amendments and supplements to Circular 39/2015/TT-BTC aiming to amend regulations on customs valuation to be consistent with current legal regulations, create transparency, simplification, publicity and convenience implementing regulations on customs value for Customs and enterprises. Besides, it also met the demand for management and combat against trade fraud.