The basic functions of customs include tax collection and administration, entry and exit supervision, bonded supervision, import and export statistics, customs inspections, customs protection of intellectual property rights, combating smuggling, port management, etc. Cross-border e-commerce involves the supervision and management of inbound and outbound goods. . Inspection and quarantine, which works with the customs, is independent of the customs department. It consists of three parts: commodity inspection, health quarantine, and animal and plant quarantine. It checks whether personnel and goods meet health standards. Commodity inspection is related to cross-border e-commerce.
Border inspection, that is, border inspection, mainly checks entry and exit personnel and items they carry; while security inspection mainly checks illegal items to ensure traffic safety. Since it is supervision and management, it is necessary to inspect the goods. The commodity inspection is to check the quality and hygiene, and it has a veto effect. If it is not qualified, it will not be allowed to enter the country. Customs inspection is to determine the authenticity of the declaration, the classification, price and origin of the goods, and the implementation of national tax and trade control measures.
Customs inspection is therefore relatively complex. During the declaration and inspection and release phases, as long as the customs officers feel that the content of the declaration form is unclear or have any questions during manual review, they can manually issue a control order. Instructions are issued to check whether the goods are consistent with each other. For trade, a “Customs Inspection Notice” will be issued. For small items such as mail, express mail and cross-border e-commerce, the assembly line operates directly.
Inspection can be divided into manual inspection and machine inspection, which can be random inspection or thorough inspection. The customs will adjust the inspection ratio and control strategy based on the company’s customs clearance history, credit rating, risk level of the goods and other factors. Nowadays, customs declaration is a bit like the accounting management of a company. You can operate it yourself or entrust a customs broker to act as an agent. In 2014, the General Administration of Customs abolished the qualification approval of “customs declarer” under the “simplification of administration and delegation of power”, and only need to register. In short, the import declaration link is very important, and no matter what channel it is, it must be “on schedule, truthfully, and standardized.”