Gov’t steps up campaign vs rogue traders, smugglers

MANILA, Philippines - Importers with high risk of misdeclaration and fraud face scrutiny as the government steps up efforts to thwart rogue traders that deprive the country additional revenues.

The Financial intelligence Unit of the Department of Finance will start conducting post-entry audit of import transactions as part of President Aquino’s Customs Reform Agenda, aimed at clamping down on smuggling and boosting state coffers.

Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima earlier said the post-entry audit work would provide a good check and balance mechanism for the Bureau of Customs.

Under the new rules, the DOF-FIU, upon determination of potential weighted risk of import transactions, will inform the Customs Commissioner that an audit of certain importers shall be undertaken.

Within 15 days from receipt of notice, the BOC shall issue an Audit Notification Letter (ANL) notifying the concerned importer of the DOF-FIU’s authority to conduct an inspection, verification and/or investigation of transactions made for the period of three  years from the date of final payment of duties.

The ANL  will state the names of the members of the FIU audit team, the date and time of the pre-audit conference, and the date of commencement of the audit proper.

The documents to be submitted by the importer and broker should be certified by the importer and/or broker to be true copies of the same.

An importer may be subject to a post-entry audit when there are errors in its import declaration, which, if uncorrected, would result in substantial revenue loss or grave distortion of relevant statistical data.

The scope of the post-entry audit has been expanded to cover importers who commit plain and simple errors in the import declarations.

Given this, importers are advised to exercise caution in preparing any document or declaration presented for customs valuation purposes.