The Vietnam Confederation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) has just commented on the Draft Circular stipulating the information criteria for carrying out customs procedures with imported and exported goods transacted via e-commerce .

Currently, the customs clearance declarations in the Draft require enterprises to declare the HS code of each goods. The HS code applied to e-commerce goods is exactly the same as the HS code for normal import and export goods.

VCCI considers that such regulation is not appropriate and has not facilitated import and export activities of e-commerce goods for the following two reasons.

Firstly, the number of HS codes to declare in a shipment is extremely large. The characteristics of cross-border e-commerce goods transportation is that in a shipment there are many orders, the goods in each order and in the shipment are very rich and different.

Second, the identification of HS codes is very complicated. From the experience of ordinary import and export of enterprises, determining the HS codes of some goods often causes difficulties. The pine import-export businesses have relatively large demands and require the customs authority to pre-determine the code.

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If the same applies, import and export activities of e-commerce goods will face the same situation as above. Determining this HS code is often very time-consuming while online buyers are not patient enough to wait for the goods, leading to cancellations and non-receipt of goods, causing damage to sellers and e-commerce platforms.

In fact, the most important factor in the clearance of e-commerce goods lies in the simplification of customs procedures so that the goods can quickly reach consumers and reduce the risk of having to change declarations or being traced. tax collection for businesses.

Therefore, VCCI recommends that the determination of tax lines and tax rates for e-commerce goods should be simplified. For example, the import-export tariff with e-commerce goods will include several "baskets of goods", which are formed based on the agglomeration of HS codes, for example, basket 1 includes clothing, apparel, footwear, bedding and other textiles; Cart 2 includes computers, electrical equipment, phones, headphones, microphones, etc. Each basket of goods will be assigned a certain tax rate.

VCCI gives an example: By following the above method, businesses can simply classify a unisex garment in basket 1 (clothes) instead of having to argue with the customs authority that this product belongs to HS 61.04 – Women's or children's suits, ensembles, jackets, vests, dresses, skirts, skirts, overalls, breeches and shorts (other than swimwear) girls, not knitted or crocheted or of another HS.

VCCI said that the construction of import and export tariff according to several "baskets of goods" has been applied in Canada since 2012 with 3 baskets of goods instead of nearly 5,400 HS codes.