Study Of The Legal Regime For Customs Advance Rulings In China

The international legal system of prior ruling on customs tax-related matters has been in place for many years.The United States,as the birthplace of the prior ruling system,has been in place since the 1960 s and has been used by many countries and regions to build their own prior ruling systems.The advantages of this system have emerged through repeated applications: by determining the tax elements of goods in advance,it ensures that goods are treated equally at any port of entry in a country or region,greatly enhancing the predictability and certainty of trade activities and stimulating the growth of foreign trade.Although the legal system of prior ruling has slightly different names or contents in different countries or regions,the effect of facilitating trade is obvious to all,so the first multilateral agreement in the world focusing on customs affairs-the Trade Facilitation Agreement has unified its regulation and determined the name of advance ruling.The construction of China’s legal system for customs advance rulings has taken many years.From 2000,when the Customs Law introduced the concept of customs administrative rulings,to 2001,when the General Administration of Customs issued the Interim Measures for the Administration of Administrative Rulings to put administrative rulings into practice;from 2000,when the goods pre-classification system was established,to 2004,when a new system of pre-determination of origin was added,to2011,when the pre-validation system was implemented throughout the customs territory,more than ten years have passed since the administrative rulings and the "three pre-determinations" have temporarily taken over some of the functions of the advance rulings.Since accepting the Trade Facilitation Agreement,China has always been committed to fulfilling its commitments and officially started implementing the legal system of customs advance rulings in 2018.The application of advance rulings has helped customs and enterprises solve many customs clearance problems,but with the rapid development of foreign trade,the increasing complexity of customs clearance and the rising demand of enterprises for trade facilitation,some shortcomings of the legal system of advance rulings have gradually come to light.For example,a unified legal system of advance rulings has not yet been formed,which is not conducive to the search and use of laws and regulations by customs and enterprises;certain conditions for applying for advance rulings are too strict,which brings restrictions to enterprises in disguise;the supervision mechanism is not perfect;and the relationship with administrative rulings,etc.has not been clarified.If these problems are not solved as soon as possible,the development of advance rulings will be slowed down.Therefore,this paper mainly focuses on the improvement of the legal system of advance rulings in China,and adopts the methods of historical analysis,normative analysis,comparative analysis and empirical analysis to systematically study the legal system of advance rulings in Chinese customs,and proposes the path and specific measures to improve the legal system of advance rulings in China.Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion,the paper consists of four parts as follows:The first part,"The Current Situation of China’s Customs Advance Rulings Legal System",explores four aspects,namely: the meaning of China’s customs advance rulings legal system,the evolution of China’s advance rulings legal system from the implementation of administrative rulings and the "three pre-determinations" to the final establishment of advance rulings,the types of advance rulings legal system,and problems with the legal system of advance rulings.It was pointed out that the legal basis for advance rulings is still incomplete,some matters in the application of the legal system need to be relaxed and improved,the system itself lacks a corresponding special supervision and correction mechanism,and the relationship with other systems and operations needs to be further coordinated;it was proposed that a complete and unified legal basis for advance rulings should be formed as soon as possible,the various matters related to the specific application of the system should be improved,and an internal supervision mechanism should be built.It is proposed that a unified legal basis for advance rulings should be formed as soon as possible,the various matters relating to the specific application of the system should be improved,an internal supervision mechanism should be constructed,and the relationship with other systems and operations should be handled properly.The second part,"The Practice of Three Types of Advance Rulings Legal System",discusses the current situation of China’s advance rulings of goods classification,advance rulings of origin and advance rulings of value,pointing out that: advance rulings of goods classification is the earliest and most mature type of advance rulings developed in China;advance rulings of origin combined with self-declaration of origin can bring more convenience to enterprises in customs clearance;there are various reasons for the change of the object of the advance rulings of value from determining the duty-paid price to determining the valuation method and elements.The case examples are selected to demonstrate the superiority of various advance rulings,and also point out their respective shortcomings: advance rulings of goods classification in the implementation of the responsibility of customs ruling errors and coordination with the relationship between inspection and quarantine duties are still more prominent;advance rulings of origin is mainly based on the "Rules of Origin" only applicable to non-preferential trade measures,the rules on the application of preferential trade measures still need to be improved;advance rulings of value will be the transaction the price pre-determination puts the transaction price method in the most important position in determining the valuation method,but the transaction price method also has limitations It is not appropriate to focus only on the application and development of this method.It is proposed that: the responsibility for customs errors should be clarified and the collaboration between the rules of classification and inspection and quarantine duties should be realised;the Rules of Origin should be supplemented as soon as possible with provisions on the application of preferential trade measures and targeted setting of origin criteria;all valuation methods should be treated fairly and equally in order to give full play to their advantages.The third part,"Improving China’s Domestic Customs Advance Rulings Legal System",puts forward four aspects of improvement from a macro perspective,namely,co-ordinating legislation to establish a complete legal system of advance rulings,adjusting some matters in the process of applying the system,building an internal supervision mechanism,and dealing with the relationship between advance rulings,administrative ruling and pre-classification services.At the micro level,the domestic laws are proposed to improve each of the three types of advance rulings systems.The fourth part,"Improving the Advance Ruling Provisions in China’s Free Trade Agreements",takes the China-New Zealand FTA,RCEP and CPTPP as examples,and discusses the importance of FTAs for China to deepen the level of trade facilitation and the necessity of improving the advance ruling provisions in FTAs;compares all the FTAs that China has signed and the CPTPP that China will join soon.The paper also examines the advance ruling clauses in all the FTAs China has signed and the CPTPP to which it is about to accede,and proposes that a solution can be devised for the future revision or conclusion of FTAs in three aspects: adding clauses to FTAs without advance ruling clauses,raising the standard of clauses in FTAs with advance ruling clauses,and extending the application of some unique clauses to all FTAs.The main conclusions of this paper are: China should on the basis of its past practical experience and learning from useful international achievements,continue to promote the improvement of the legal system of advance rulings,improve the legal basis of advance rulings,set up a special monitoring mechanism and clarify the relationship with other systems,so as to achieve high-quality development of China’s legal system of customs advance rulings and improve the level of trade facilitation in China.Active attention should also be paid to making the advance rulings provisions in the FTAs signed by China more functional,so as to better optimise the overall business environment in the region.