Assessment / Appraising procedures of imported goods What is Assessment of goods

in Imports? How is value assessed in import by customs official? How many types of
value assessment is there on the basis of inspection of goods? Can all goods be
value assessed immediately up on filing of Bill of Entry?
Normally in most of customs houses, there will be a group of appraising professionals
specialized in particular commodity or commodities for assessment and import permissibility.
Once after generating bill of entry number after registration, the said details of bill of entry is
passed on to the computer system of appraising officer authorized for assessment. All
concerned customs officials need not be physically present at import destination customs
location where in online value assessment is done electronically.
Value appraisal of imported goods by customs official could be after completion of
examination of goods or before examination of goods. First check or Second Check
appraisement is decided either by customs officials or by importer depends of nature of
goods imported and discretion of importer and customs officials separately.
If value assessment is after First Check Appraisement, inspection of import goods are
carried out and the concerned inspection of customs officials provide a report on such
examination. This examination report is electronically sent to concerned appraising officer of
customs. If appraising officer of customs requires further information to assess the value of
goods imported based on the documents produced by importer, he arranges to call for any
further documents, personal hearing with importer or draw sample of goods imported. Please
read one of my articles in same website about drawing test sample to know more about test report in import clearance procedures.

As mentioned in the said article, customs assessing officers cannot assess value of
all imported goods immediately up on examination and supporting documents. Some of the
goods may require to be sent for details inspection by the concerned government agencies
specialized. For example, there are many types of chemicals, if a particular chemical is
imported, the concerned customs official for appraisement may not know the actual value of
such chemical. The value of imported goods has to be roughly matched with the present
market value of similar goods. Means, the assessing officer has to find out, whether any
malpractice of under invoicing or over invoicing effected by the importer/exporter. Value
appraising officer of customs has to verify whether the goods imported are the same which
importer declared in documents. If requires, an assessing officer of customs can order to
examine hundred percentage imported goods. In such cases, all pieces and parcels of
goods are de stuffed in to the customs bonded area and arranges a thorough inspection of
imported goods. A report on such hundred percent inspections is delivered to assessing
officer of customs by deputed inspection team of customs. Once after completion of the
above procedures and formalities on assessment, appraising officer of customs determines
the rate of duty on imported goods if applicable. Once after deriving the classification of
imported goods, the rate of import duty is reflected electronically on the basis of software
system of Customs Tariff. The assessable value of imported goods is determined based on
such software.
 Technical Smuggling refers to the act of importing goods into the
country by means of fraudulent, falsified or erroneous declaration of
the goods to its nature, kind, quality, quantity or weight, for the
purpose of reducing or avoiding payment of prescribed taxes, duties
and other charges;
 Outright Smuggling refers to an act of importing goods into the country
without complete customs prescribed importation documents, or
without being cleared by customs or other regulatory government
agencies, for the purpose of evading payment of prescribed taxes,
duties and other government charges;