Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has approved a Customs Administrative Order (CAO) that raises the tax – exemption value of small importations from the current P10 to P10,000.
Under the CAO, de minimis or small value importations shall be subject to non-intrusive examinations, such as x-rays or other equivalent devices on a purely random basis, according to Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko.
It is the first amendment on the value of de minimis imports since the P10 limit was imposed under Republic Act 1937 about 59 years ago.
Among the touted benefits of this CAO are the increased efficiency in the processing of de minimis importations through a streamlined process that utilizes information and communication technology (ICT) and the deployment of freed up capacity to improve customs monitoring and control of riskier importations.
The CAO states that the de minimis value “shall be adjusted by the Secretary of Finance every three (3) years after the effectivity of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) to its present value using the Consumer Price Index, as published by the Philippine Statistics Authority.”
The CAO is a product of public consultations conducted by the Department of Finance (DOF)-Bureau of Customs (BOC), and will be the first in a series of CAOs to be enacted to implement the CMTA.
Tionko highlighted the use of ICT in the public consultations where inputs, comments and recommendations from the public were collated in a DOF microsite.
For inquiries, comments and suggestions on the proposed Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the law, one can email the CMTA Project Management Office and Secretariat at cmta.irr.pmo@customs.gov.ph and cmta_irr@dof.gov.ph.
Last August 17, the DOF and the BOC held the first of a series of public consultations on the CMTA’s IRR at the Ayuntamiento de Manila in Intramuros, where some 100 stakeholders from the private sector attended the meeting.
The easy-to-navigate microsite contains the drafting process, timelines, and guidelines on the crafting of the IRR, and also includes a list of priority concerns on the CMTA and the point persons assigned to each topic.
These include concerns on de minimis importations, alert orders, and risk management in customs control, the customs bonded warehousing system, post clearance audit, advance ruling system, and conditional tax- and duty- exempt importations for balikbayans, overseas Filipino workers and returning residents, among others.
The site aims to organize online queries and recommendations on the drafting of the IRR by encouraging stakeholders to submit position papers using the template that can be downloaded from the site.
To further ensure transparency, the site also aims to track the development of CAOs through an “Elements Matrix” that can also be accessed online.
The site also provides an overview of the law’s provisions and what stakeholders can expect from the new statute to aid them in understanding the CMTA.
It additionally provides legal materials for interested stakeholders, such as the texts of the CMTA, the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines, and the Kyoto Convention.
