THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) will start imposing on June 1 the automated transshipment entry system in all ports nationwide. This was decided after a meeting between BOC officials and stakeholders last week.
The system will only cover customs territories; it excludes transshipments of Philippine Economic Zone Authority and freeport zone locators.
Under the scheme, the payment of the cargo transit fee will done using the Payment Abstract Secure System instead of the manual process. Other processes will be patterned after Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) 43-2010.
Under CMO 43-2010, only importers/brokers accredited under the Client Profile Registration System can electronically lodge their declaration through BOC-accredited value-added service providers.
The system automatically verifies or checks the required license, clearance and permits granted by the issuing agency. It also calculates duties and taxes essential in processing transit/transshipment declarations and verifies the validity of the General Transport Surety Bond (GTSB) and its remaining balance under the importer’s bonds account number.
Tax exemption certificates (TECs) issued by the Department of Finance will not be considered in the full assessment of duties and taxes due on the shipment during lodgment. Instead, the TEC will be used at the port of final destination during lodging of the import entry.
The amount of duties, taxes and other charges due shall be charged against the GTSB to cover the movement of cargo from the port of discharge to the port of final destination.
If the transit declaration fails to satisfy at least one of the verification criteria, the system automatically rejects the entry by sending an ‘error’ message to the VASP for transmission to the originator. However, if the entry meets all validation rules, the system assigns a registration number to the transit/transshipment declaration showing that the declaration is recognized by the Customs system as official and accepted.
