China’s New Customs Discretion Benchmarks for Import and Export Activities

• China’s General Administration of Customs issued bulletins on benchmarks for customs administrative discretionary penalties in December 2023
• Three Discretion Benchmarks were established for different types of violations
• The Benchmarks aim to standardize discretion in customs penalties and provide guidance for businesses
• Five levels of discretion for customs administrative penalties were established
• Circumstances when administrative penalties can be waived were listed in the bulletins
• The Minor Violation Rule was introduced to determine if a violation is minor
• Customs authorities have the power to reject the application of the Minor Violation Rule for repeat offenders.

Source: taxathand.com

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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