Explanation to the business community on customs control at the border with China

Explanation to the business community on customs control at the border with China

Appeals from representatives of the business community regarding the ongoing control measures at the border with China were published on social networks. The State Revenue Committee, having considered these appeals, provided explanations.

The State Revenue Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee), as part of the execution of the instructions of the Head of State, to strengthen customs control, including at the border with China, as part of an interdepartmental group at the Prosecutor General's Office, conducted joint inspections of the activities of foreign trade participants, as well as border checkpoints with China.

During the verification of the information contained in customs declarations, transport, accounting and other documents, a discrepancy of information affecting the customs value of imported goods was revealed.

Information was received from the State Tax Administration of the People's Republic of China, which does not confirm the conclusion of contracts of some foreign trade participants with foreign suppliers (lack of payment for goods), which was the basis for the cancellation of the method of determining the customs value based on the contract (method 1). The total amount of violations for 3 years amounted to 165 billion tenge.

Also, the Prosecutor General's Office has made demands to the Committee regarding the improvement of customs administration and control measures.

In this regard, the Ministry of Finance has approved an appropriate Action Plan providing for a number of tasks, the main of which are:

  • identification of priority commodity groups with discrepancies in customs statistics;
  • improvement of the risk management system and revision of the subject-oriented approach;
  • categorization of subjects near the customs sphere;
  • formation and updating of cost risk indicators for all major groups of goods;
  • publication of up-to-date price information;
  • development of proposals to limit the activities of one-day firms;
  • revision and modification of information systems, etc.

Currently, as part of the improvement of the risk management system, measures are being taken to revise the criteria for categorizing foreign trade participants, applying categorization to subjects near the customs sphere (customs carriers, customs representatives, temporary storage warehouses).

In addition, to date, the processes regarding the application of the risk management system and the categorization of persons performing customs operations are automated.

Regarding the Electronic Declaration Center, until recently there was a problem with the application by individual regions of different practices for determining the value of goods, as a result of which different pricing policies were applied to the same product.

In order to eliminate this practice, in January of this year, the centralization of customs functions in terms of control and issuance of declarations for goods was fully completed. A department has been created under the State Revenue Committee, including an "Electronic Declaration Center" and a "Situation Center".

This made it possible to monitor the operational situation at checkpoints, where all technical means are connected, and centrally make decisions on control measures and the application of a unified practice for determining customs value.

In 2021, 17.6 thousand declarations for goods were adjusted, the effectiveness of detected violations during inspection increased by 2 times.

In general, we are open to dialogue with business, and also, if there are specific facts of illegal actions on the part of state revenue agencies, we ask you to provide information on such cases for more detailed consideration.