The Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) paperless drive will gain further traction with a plan to soon reduce the number of hard copies required in the submission of consumption entries, from the current seven copies to three.
“By September 1 you only have to print out three copies of the SAD (single administrative document),” Atty. Agaton Teodoro Uvero, Deputy Commissioner for Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group, told participants of the forum on Revised Rules for Sea Manifest Submission organized by the Philippine International Seafreight Forwarders Association and PortCalls on July 21 at the Manila Hotel.
Uvero said that instead of buying seven sets of carbonized forms each worth about P300, stakeholders only need to provide three sets of SAD, resulting in cost savings of 133% and paper use reduction of more than 40%.
The BOC executive said the reduced requirement for hard copies is in fact partly in effect after the bureau recently signed a memorandum of agreement with the Tariff Commission (TC). The agreement requires that the TC be supplied with only soft or digital copies of the Import Entry and Internal Revenue Declaration (IEIRD or BC Form 236) forms from BOC’s electronic-to-mobile (e2m) system.
BOC will soon sign a similar agreement with the Philippine Statistics Authority, Uvero said.
Providing such data to the TC is mandated under Section 609 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP). Section 609 directs the BOC to regularly furnish the National Economic and Development Authority, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and TC copies of all customs import and export entries through the IEIRD.
Thus, since 2004, BOC has been providing seven manual copies of the pre-numbered IEIRD, which is paid for by the importer. Aside from the BOC and TC, the copies are furnished to the following agencies: National Statistics Office; Bureau of Internal Revenue; declarant; terminal operator; and Gatekeeper PID (for ports outside Metro Manila) and Deputy Collector for Operations (for Metro Manila ports). – Roumina Pablo
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