Customs Law: Sources, Powers and Liability
This domain tests whether you can anchor any customs action in a specific legal instrument, identify who carries the obligation, and apply the correct time limit and liability rule. Questions are scenario-based: a company does X - what may customs do, within what period, and on what legal basis?
Legal hierarchy
- The Customs Law of the PRC (1987, substantially revised in 2000 and amended since) is the parent statute.
- Below it sit the Regulations on Import and Export Duties, the Regulations on Customs Administrative Penalties, GACC ministerial rules and public announcements.
- International instruments - the HS Convention and the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement - shape classification and valuation practice.
Core duties and powers
- Four statutory functions: supervision and control, duty collection, anti-smuggling, and trade statistics.
- Powers include inspection, document examination, seizure, and post-clearance audit (稽查).
- The duty payer must pay within 15 days of the duty payment certificate; late payment attracts a fee of 0.05% per day.
- Truthful declaration is the declarant's own obligation, not the client's.
Worked example
An importer declares a machine at USD 100,000 when the invoice shows USD 130,000, short-paying duty of CNY 60,000. Because the understatement is the declarant's fault, customs recovers the shortfall within three years and charges a late fee of 0.05% per day from the original due date. Since the error affected duty collection, a fine of 30%–200% of the evaded duty may also be imposed. If intent is proven and the evaded duty is large enough (generally CNY 50,000 or more), the case is treated as smuggling and referred for criminal process.
Traps that cost marks
- Mixing the three-year recovery period (taxpayer fault) with the one-year period (customs' own error).
- Treating 滞报金 (late declaration fee) and 滞纳金 (late payment fee) as interchangeable - both are 0.05% per day, but the bases differ.
- Forgetting that customs' administrative acts are reviewable, but the deadlines to challenge them are short.