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Intellectual Property and Commercial Court

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2012 Xing Ta Su Zi No. 2

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Decision No. 2012 Xing Ta Su Zi No. 2
Date December 13, 2012
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1.The duty-payer shall declare imported good to Customs honestly, and the current procedures governing customs clearance require declaration and examination of imported goods. When imported goods are found to have been not conforming to the original declaration and involved in smuggling, duty evasion or other violations of law, the act shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Customs for the Suppression of Smuggling and other relevant laws. In order to avoid violation of these laws, the plaintiff, prior to the declaration, shall take the initiative in determining the true origin of imported goods. However, if the plaintiff didn’t verify the origin beforehand, he should be responsible for the incorrect declaration.

In this case, the plaintiff only believed in and depended on the introduction from the broker, borrowed licenses, and made declarations to Customs. Even though the plaintiff had no intent, the plaintiff still failed to exercise due care for customs clearance, a violation not involving avoidance of Customs inspections, evasion of Customs duties, or escape of Customs controls. The plaintiff lacked due care and was manifestly negligent. The fact certainly corresponded to the Act of Customs for the Suppression of Smuggling that mentioned above.

2.Second, customs duty shall be collected by Customs on ad valorem basis, on a specific basis, or on a compound duty basis. To compute customs duty on ad valorem basis is based on the customs value of imported goods and the tax rate stipulated by the Rules of the Customs Import Tariff. The sequence for the application of valuation methods, as explained by the legislative history of the Customs Act, is the transaction value, the transaction value of identical goods, the transaction value of similar goods, a deductive value, a computed value that is based on the costs and expenses of producing the imported goods, and last, a value that is determined by using reasonable means. The transaction value is not the only basis of the declared price.

In case that Customs is doubtful of the truth and accuracy of the transaction or the documents provided by the duty-payer, or that the duty-payer fails to provide an explanation, or that Customs still remains doubtful after the provision of such an explanation, it shall be deemed that the customs value cannot be determined under Article 29 of the Customs Act. Under such circumstances, the customs value of imported goods should be determined by the sequence provided by the Articles 31 to 35 of the Customs Act. This case involved counterfeit Viagra. As a result, customs value could not be determined by the transaction value (according to Article 29 of the Customs Act), the transaction value of identical goods (according to Article 31 of the Customs Act), the transaction value of similar goods (according to Article 32 of the Customs Act), a deductive value (according to Article 33 of the Customs Act) or a computed value (according to Article 34 of the Customs Act). Therefore, the defendant is surely allowed to determine customs value by a value that is determined by using reasonable means (according to Article 35 of the Customs Act).

3.The plaintiff did not provide the cost data of each counterfeit Viagra pill. The market price of each authentic Viagra pill is 450 NT dollars. Based on this price, the total value of this case would be 5,525,000 NT dollars (450 ×12,500). The method that the defendant used to determine the price of the counterfeit goods according to the transaction value of authentic goods consists with Article 19 Paragraph 1 of the Enforcement Rules of the Customs Act, which defines the term "reasonable means" as referred to in Article 35 of the Customs Act. In other words, the transaction value and the ratio to be determined are consistent with the purpose of the Customs Act, which is to assure honest declaration by importers of imported goods. The act of the defendant did not go beyond the necessary means of realizing the purpose of enforcing that law. Moreover, the false declaration by the plaintiff for the controlled drugs is an offense against Article 37 Paragraph 3 of the Customs Anti-smuggling Act (amended and promulgated on January 19, 2005) and Article 36 Paragraph 1 of the Customs Anti-smuggling Act (amended and promulgated on December 28, 1983) that prohibit smuggling of goods. Due to concurrent application of two articles, this case corresponded to Article 39-1 of the same Act (amended and promulgated on January 19, 2005), which prohibits the illegal behavior of importing or exporting counterfeit goods. However, the nature of the plaintiff’s behavior involved avoidance of Customs inspections, evasion of Customs duties, or escape of Customs controls. If Customs determines the value of the goods by the price of counterfeit Viagra as claimed by the plaintiff, it would be equivalent to encouraging illegal behaviors and incapable of deterring smuggling of counterfeit goods. As a result, the plaintiff’s claim that Customs should determine the value by the price of counterfeit Viagra is not convincing, and the court disagrees with the plaintiff in this part.

Keywords

Concurrence of Articles, Customs Value

Relevant statutes Article 35 of the Customs Act, Article 37 Paragraph 3 of the Customs Anti-smuggling Act (amended and promulgated on January 19, 2005), Article 36 Paragraph 1 of the Customs Anti-smuggling Act (amended and promulgated on December 28, 1983)
  • Release Date:2020-11-16
  • Update:2020-12-07
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