Customs Offences and smuggling

Iran Customs Law – Part VIII Customs Offences and smuggling

This part include two chapters , chapter 1: customs offences and chapter 2: Smuggling

Chapter 1 – Customs offences

Article 102: Service of any minutes of meeting indicating seizure and con fiscation of goods and detection of offences and smuggling to any person who have submitted the goods declaration to the customs representing the owner of the goods and as a result of investigation such declaration, the minutes of meeting have been drawn up, shall be construed as serving to the owner of the goods.

Article 103: Water means of transports (vessels), whether loaded or empty, which enter into the country’s waters should berth in authorized wharfs or anchor in the authorized harbors and before performance of related procedures, no goods should be loaded or unloaded or leaving wharfs or harbors should not take place. Air-crafts, whether loaded or empty, which enter the country should land in authorized airport and the required customs formalities should be applied to them. Customs formalities of departure aircrafts and their goods should be performed before flying. Road means of transports, whether loaded or empty, should enter into the country through authorized customs roads and enter non-stop into the first border customs and the customs formalities should be applied to them. They should also exit through authorized customs roads.

Note 1: Authorized customs roads, airports, quays and docks for entry and exit of the means of transports, aircrafts, goods and passengers which are subject to customs formalities shall be determined based on the proposal of a committee presided over by the representative of the Ministry of Interior and composed of plenipotentiaries of Iran Customs Administration, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Roads and Urban Development as well as Industry, Mining and Trade, Police, and Vice President for Strategic Planning and Control and shall be approved by the Council of Ministers.

Note 2: Berthing, mooring, descending and entering into and exit of means of transports from unauthorized routs without performing related formalities, except in force majeure cases which is required to be proved shall, in case of empty means of transports, be subject to payment of a fine to the amount of 600,000 Rls. up to 6,000,000 Rls. at the discretion of the related customs’ chief and in case of means of transports carrying goods, be subject the provisions of Article 113.

Article 104: Where it is observed that package(s) not referred to in general (cargo) declaration, manifest and the bills of lading of the
means of transport are combined with goods imported subject to article 103 and/or package(s) referred to in general declaration, manifest and the bills of lading are not delivered to withholding authority , and in order to explain the reason of such difference, the transport company have not been submitted documents accepted to the customs within three months, the case shall be treated as follows:

a. In case of surplus unloading, additional package(s) shall only be seized.

b. In case of deficit in unloading, disciplinary fine shall be collected in accordance with Article 110 of this law.

Note 1:If within the required period, by providing documents acceptable to the customs, it is established that the difference was not as a result of fraudulent intent, the customs shall permit the amendment of general declaration.

Note 2: Additional packages delivered to the customs which is the destination of internal transit shall be subjected to the provisions of
this article.

Note 3: Unreasonable deficit and surplus amount of goods imported without packaging, shall, for the purpose of manner of taking measures and collecting fine, are subjected to the provisions of this article.

Note 4: Responsibility of payment of above-mentioned fines in case of transportation companies which have agencies in Iran, shall be borne by such agencies and in case of transportation companies which have not of ficial agencies in Iran, the customs may obtain necessary security in order to collect eventual fines from carrier of the goods.

Article 105: If a goods whose import is prohibited, is declared with full and correct name and specifications for outright import, the customs shall refuse its release and send a written notice to the owner of goods or his/her legal representative to transit it externally or return it subject to related terms and condition within three months. In case of failure in taking any measure within such period, the customs shall seize the goods and service the case on the owner or his/her legal representative. The owner of goods shall be entitled to submit his/her objection to the competent court within two months from the date of service of the seizure and inform the related customs of the case not more than fifteen days from the date of referring the case to the competent court, otherwise the goods shall outright be seized by the Government.

Note 1: Goods whose import are considered as a crime, shall be excluded from the scope of this article and relevant laws and regulations shall be applied to them.

Note 2: In cases where the owner of the goods is opposed to the discretion of the customs, and the case is referred to administrative bodies and customs disputes settlement authorities, its proceedings shall be done out of turn. The date of service of the final discretion of the customs shall be the rates for calculating of said three months.

Note 3:If the owner of goods or his/her legal representative informs his/her disagreement with external transit or returning of the goods in writing prior the expiration of three-month period, the customs shall immediately seize the goods.

Article 106: b .The goods referred to in article 105 which have been released from the customs instead of permissible goods and without using untrue documents and not more than four months have passed from their release shall be treated as follows:

a .If all or parts of released goods are at the disposal of the owner of the goods, they shall immediately be seized and after refunding collected import duties, the case shall be treated in accordance with the provisions of article 105 of this law.

b. If all or parts of cleared goods are not at the disposal of the owner of the goods, and it is known that at the time of release a higher amount of import duties have been accrued to them, the balance amount of import duties which are not collected, shall be collected.

Article 107: In case where during examination of a declaration or checks of export goods it is known that the amount of fund which was declared or deposited had been less than the required amount, in addition to collecting the balance amount, a fine equals to five percent (5%) to fifty percent (50%) of such balance amount shall be collected at the discretion of the customs’ chief.

Note: If in the export declaration, more than ten percent (10%) more or less than the real value of the goods is untruly declared in order to create illegal privileges and facilities for the owner of the goods, a fine between ten percent (10%) to one hundred percent (100%) of the balance amount of the value shall be collected.

Article 108: Apart from the instances that are mentioned in the law as smuggling, detecting any discrepancies after declaring and before release of imported goods from the customs, which results in financial loss of the government and requires collecting of balance amount of pertaining fees, in addition to collecting the amount, due to circumstances and at discretion of the customs’ chief, an amount of fines equal to ten percent (10%) to one hundred percent (100%) of the balance amount shall be collected.

Note 1: If detecting of a discrepancy results in collecting balance amount import duties in an amount equal to more than fifty percent (50%) of the import duties of declared goods, in addition to collecting the balance amount, the minimum collected fine shall not be less than fifty percent (50%) of the balance amount.

Note 2 :In cases where the final destination of the bill of lading after the customs, is arrival border and a transit declaration is drawn up
based on the contents of the documents and submitted to the customs, if as a result of examination a discrepancy is detected in the type and quantity of the goods and documents acceptable to the customs have not been submitted within three months, contrary and surplus goods shall be seized by the government.

Note 3: Fines related to contrary declaring, with the exception of note 2 of this article, in case of external transit, returned, and internal transit goods by the transport company shall be collected in form of security so that in case of non-releasing or non-delivery of goods to the destination customs within the required period, in addition to applying related provisions, they shall be credited in definitive income.

Article 109: Apart from the force majeure cases, in case of failure in leaving the country or submitting to the customs within the required period, the means of transports and goods imported into the country in the form of transit, temporary import, temporary import for processing or returned and those means of transports imported according to international transit permit shall, at the discretion of the customs’ chief, be subject to fines of four hundred thousand (400,000) Rls. to two million (2,000,000) Rls. for per day of delay.

Note: Cases in which the fees of a pledge or security received from the owner of a means of transport or goods are credited in income and/or judicial authorities are notified of the crime of smuggling shall be excluded from the provisions of this article.

Article 110: If in the declarations submitted to the customs for clearance of the goods, untrue specification of the goods are declared but such untrue declaring does not entail any fiscal losses for the government and its detection does not require collecting of the balance amount, at the discretion of the local customs’ chief, fines not less than five hundred thousand (1,000,000) Rls. and not more than one million (2,000,000) Rls. shall be collected and the submitted declaration shall, with the written consent of the local customs’ chief, be corrected.

Note: In cases where untrue declaring is not one of the instances of offences and smuggling referred to in this law but the goods themselves

are the ones whose import are prohibited, the customs shall take measure in accordance with the provisions of article 105 of this law and in addition to it, the fine referred to in this article shall also be collected.

Article 111: Whenever the offenders of customs regulations who are required to pay fines, have objections to the fine itself or its amount which is determined by the local customs’ chief, they may, before release or after its depositing or securing in the realated customs, submit their objections accompanied by reasons and evidences to the related customs in order to be referred to the customs disputes settlement authorities.

Note:In all cases in which a fine for customs offences is determined by the customs’ chiefs, the fine shall be determined regarding to the type, repetition and frequency of the offence, offenders’ records and status, volume, type and value of goods and circumstances of time and place, and shall clearly and completely stipulated and signed in the minutes of meeting of the offence and a copy of it shall be sent to Iran Customs Administration and in lieu of collecting the fine an official receipt shall immediately be issued
and submitted to the payer.

Article 112: Involving of the customs employees in foreign trade or customs brokerage and any other profession related to customs formalities shall be prohibited. Violators shall be sentenced to dismissal from service by the order of administrative offences investigating authorities.

 Costumes Offences