Customs planning can generally be carried out from two lines. One line is to develop around different ways of business activities of enterprises, including the establishment of internal control mechanisms, the connection between enterprise financial warehouse systems and customs supervision, and the categories of enterprise import and export management. This method has strong practicality and purpose. The other line is to develop around different categories of customs supervision, including customs clearance supervision, tax collection, enterprise management, risk management, audit and verification, etc. The advantage of this method is that it is well organized, but it is difficult to operate when customs supervision methods change frequently. In practice, customs planning generally combines the above two organically, starting from the actual situation of the enterprise, focusing on the import and export business activities of importers and exporters, and conducting all-round operations on relevant supervision methods, especially the main supervision methods, in order to tap the greatest tax saving potential and obtain the greatest import and export benefits.
Enterprises generally obtain import and export benefits through customs planning by choosing a tax plan with a low tax burden and reducing customs clearance costs. The choice of a tax plan with a low tax burden occupies an important position in customs planning.
Generally speaking, it includes the reduction of tax burden and the conversion of tax burden from high to low. Therefore, customs planning can mainly obtain import and export benefits through three ways: reducing the tax burden of enterprises, converting the tax burden of enterprises from high to low, and deferring the tax period of enterprises. Reducing the tax burden of enterprises means that enterprises invest capital in regions, industries, sectors or projects that do not bear taxes or only bear light taxes, so as to reduce the tax burden and obtain a higher rate of return on capital.
For example, if an enterprise has a situation where both the supply of raw materials and the sales of finished products are “outside”, it can save taxes by choosing the processing trade mode compared with general trade import and export. Converting the tax burden of enterprises from high to low means that when there are multiple tax plans available for the same business behavior, enterprises choose the tax plan with low tax burden to obtain tax benefits. For example, if an enterprise imports relevant goods, if there is no difference in product quality, price, consumer preferences, etc., it can choose to import from countries and regions that have signed tax preferential agreements with my country, such as tax preferential products under the “Arrangement on Establishing Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement” (CEPA).
Deferring the tax period of enterprises means that taxpayers, under the premise of complying with the “Customs Law”, postpone the tax period of relevant taxable items to reduce interest expenses and actual tax expenses. The purpose of choosing these channels is to minimize tax expenditures within the legal scope and obtain the maximum net import and export benefits.