Circular No. 116/2011/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance guiding the Prime Minister's Decision No. 36/2011/QD-TTg of June 29, 2011, issuing the import duty rates for used passenger cars of 15 seats or less

Guidance on dutiable prices of imported used passenger cars

The Ministry of Finance issued the Circular No. 116/2011/TT-BTC dated August 15, 2011, guiding the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 36/2011/QD-TTg of June 29, 2011, issuing the import duty rates for used passenger cars of 15 seats or less.

According to this Circular, customs declarants must fully and accurately declare import duty rates applicable to, and expenses related to the purchase of, imported used passenger cars of 15 seats or less and determine their dutiable prices by themselves according to regulations, declaring in detail car name, brand, manufacturer, origin, type, cylinder capacity, number of seats, doors and drive shafts, gear type, type of engine fuel, year of model, other model codes, if any, year of manufacture and number of kilometers traveled.

Customs offices determine dutiable prices when customs declarants cannot determine dutiable prices according to valuation methods; customs declarants fail to declare or inaccurately declare adjustments; reject declared prices; have price-related doubts; or customs declarants fail to comply with the legal provisions.

The dutiable price of imported used passenger cars of 15 seats or less is the actually paid price at the first border gate of importation and shall be determined by applying one after another the six methods on the basis of the transaction value of imports; the transaction value of identical imports; the transaction value of similar imports; the deductible value; the computed value and the inferential method of determining the dutiable value.

When determining dutiable prices, customs offices shall comply with the order, principles and methods of determining dutiable prices and base themselves on information and data sources available at the time of price determination. The determined dutiable prices, however, must not be lower than check prices of identical or similar cars on the list of imports subject to risk management by the General Department of Customs.

In case check prices of identical or similar cars on the list of imports subject to risk management by the General Department of Customs are unavailable, the determined prices must not be lower than the prices of brand-new cars of the same type and year of manufacture by 10% for each year of use.