The Ministry of Finance announced that an improvement in the online inquiry concerning the value of declared merchandises intends to reduce under-declaration in 20%. For the purpose of establishing better controls on imported merchandises, the National Service of Customs of the Ministry of Finance has intensified and integrated software tools to apply in a more efficient and effective manner instruments of control over the value declared for the entry and exit of goods.

Among other benefits, these improvements will permit to expand controls over under-invoicing and are composed of two essential components: i) To enable value control instruments and improve the software applications to potentiate the control tools; the above accompanied by intense training of the staff for an efficient application of these new tools. ii) To use the information from the TICA software for Customs control.

There has also been a significant improvement in the online inquiry in TICA concerning the value of goods by officials in charge of examining the goods. In this way, they are able to consult import declarations quickly and check the values of the goods being examined.

With both instruments, Customers officials will be able to conduct compared analyses and a better assessment of the value specified in the Customs declaration under study.

If there are any substantial inconsistencies or differences between the information that Customs has available and the declared value, the Reasonable Doubt procedure can be followed. It allows Customs authorities to question the truthfulness or accuracy of the information submitted and require the importer to produce the documents necessary to demonstrate the value declared in the DUA.

These instruments will also encourage a correct declaration of the description of goods in the Customs Import Declarations, a primary element to conduct the value verification task.

The TICA system is an IT tool that supports a comprehensive management model that seeks to modernize Customs management by means of an intensive use of the technology. Taking into account the need of analysis of information and its rapid growth, the Ministry of Finance is working on business intelligence architecture to find a solution adjusted to the current needs of information of the organization, using the one provided by TICA as data source. External information sources will be added subsequently to establish a comprehensive and powerful intelligence platform, permanently upgraded.