The municipal General Department of Customs on Wednesday officially began offering online services at Level 3 and Level 4 for 46 administrative procedures for people and businesses.

The service can be accessed at http://pus.customs.gov.vn e-portal of the department.

Level-3 services will allow individuals and companies to fill in and submit forms online. Meanwhile, Level-4 public services, the highest of four administrative levels in the country, allow applicants to pay fees online and receive the results via the internet or the post office.

The administrative procedures include tax payment confirmation, recognising businesses with priorities, remission of tax arrears and deferred payment and fines, as well as registration for exported goods exempt from taxes and tax refund.

Since the beginning of the year, the municipal Customs Department has implemented pilot online public services for administrative procedures.

It said the online public services would have no effect on enterprises’ import-exports.

Moreover, they could accelerate administrative reforms, reducing paper work for customs departments and bring transparency and benefits to people and businesses.

The online services could help firms reduce time, costs and documents in their implementation of customs procedures, especially those which are complicated, such as export settlement, tax exemption for goods serving for science and education research and fines.

It is expected that by the end of the year, the department would provide all its administrative procedures at Level 3 and some online public services at Level 4.

HCM City’s Customs Department is currently also offering online services at Level 3 for 41 administrative procedures. — VNS