Korea Customs Service Provides 'Emergency Administrative Support' to Export-Import Companies Affected by Heavy Rainfall

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The Korea Customs Service will provide emergency administrative support to export-import companies affected by the heavy rains.

According to the Korea Customs Service on the 11th, the support will focus on tax administration assistance such as extension of customs duty payment deadlines and installment payments for imported goods, a general suspension of customs investigations, and special customs clearance support.

Tax administration assistance allows for extending the payment deadline for customs duties and other taxes imposed on imported goods by up to one year or paying taxes in installments, with the taxpayer’s obligation to provide collateral waived in such cases.

For raw materials for export, the support includes immediate payment of refunds for customs duties already paid and extension of the export fulfillment period from the existing 2 years to 3 years (limited to plant export goods).

The suspension of customs investigations primarily involves halting customs investigations until the end of the year for companies whose workplaces were damaged by the heavy rains, and actively accepting requests to postpone or suspend customs investigations for companies that have already been notified in advance or are undergoing investigations.

Special customs clearance support enables expedited customs clearance for raw and subsidiary materials urgently procured after heavy rain damage such as factory closures.

Additionally, the Korea Customs Service plans to exempt companies located in areas that will be declared as ‘special disaster zones’ due to the heavy rains from the imposition of ‘additional taxes for delayed import declarations’ to reduce the burden on companies.

Additional taxes can be imposed up to a maximum of 5 million KRW within 2% of the taxable value if the import declaration is made more than 30 days after the bonded area placement.

A Korea Customs Service official said, “We will focus our efforts on receiving reports of heavy rain damage from export-import companies and providing emergency support to those companies through the ‘Export-Import Company Support Centers’ established at six customs offices nationwide, including Seoul, Incheon, Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, and Pyeongtaek.”