China’s export-oriented economy has grown continuously since China joined WTO and, in 2013, China became the world's largest trading economy. Correspondingly, for many trading companies doing business in China, both domestic and international, the legal services requirements in relation to customs, import and export affairs has become increasingly urgent. This need is accentuated by the operation of a complex and dynamic regulatory regime and an increasingly powerful law enforcement apparatus. JT&N’s Customs Practice addresses this important sector by providing a professional customs service team which effectively integrates the entire scope of JT&N’s relevant strengths and resources to satisfy client requirements.
The JT&N Customs team is among a small number of professional legal teams in China with the capacity to support a comprehensive scope of customs-related legal services. Many of the attorneys on the JT&N team have substantial prior in customs, tax affairs, international trade, international logistics, and other relevant professional occupations, and have accumulated rich experience in the supervision of processing trade, goods import and export, international logistics and storage, product classification and valuation, customs protection of intellectual property rights and other important functional areas. In addition to practical experience, JT&N professionals have derived deep understanding of customs laws and regulations through exhaustive research and study. Due to our extensive experience, familiarity and comprehensive understanding of national and local customs, commercial institutions, inspection and quarantine institutions, the JT&N Customs Practice is able to fully provide tailored and effective customs-related legal service support and solutions for a broad variety of enterprises and circumstances.
Since its inception, the JT&N Customs Practice has successfully represented clients in numerous significant cases, including those relating to customs inspection, anti-smuggling measures and suspected violations of customs supervision regulations. Considered in aggregate, the value of such cases has amounted to billions of RMB, involving a broad variety of industrial segments, including electronic products, vehicles and auto parts, medicine, large-scale mechanical equipment manufacturing, international logistics and involved a number of different customs divisions, including the General Customs Administration and local customs in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Huangpu, Nanjing, Qingdao, Dongguan, among others. In the preponderance of cases, our clients were ultimately determined to be exempt from paying overdue tax or administrative penalties. When penalties were assigned, in most cases they were significantly reduced.
Our principal customs legal services are described below.
Basic compliance assessment: reviewing and providing advice with respect to enterprise daily customs operations, including contracts, import documents, and application documents.
Tariff collection: assisting clients to fully comprehend relevant tariff collection and preferential policies, and assisting clients in maximizing benefits in tax and customs clearance processes in conformance with all applicable laws and regulations.
Processing trade supervision: providing legal advice on each stage of trade processing, including the filing of processing trade contracts, customs duty deposits, customs clearance of processing trade products, supervision of imported equipment, unit consumption approval, processing in different places across customs areas, deep processing transit, domestic sale of processing trade products and cancellation after verification of contracts.
Customs valuation: providing legal advice on general customs valuation, and advice on duty-paid values under special circumstances involving royalties, warranty expenses and connected transactions.
Commodity classification: providing commodity classification information and associated assistance to clients and confirming and assessing the legitimacy of commodity classifications and related tax implications.
Customs investigation: assisting enterprises to appropriately cope with routine and special inspections of customs and other customs investigations, including those involving suspected unlawful acts.
Customs anti-smuggling support: assisting enterprises to cope with the customs anti-smuggling enforcement measures, including joining the case defense team in the event that a case proceeds to a criminal procedure, in order to preserve the rights and benefits of the party to the case.
Remedies: as to the administrative actions made by customs that are deemed to be disadvantageous to enterprises, applying for and participating in the hearing, administrative reconsideration and administrative lawsuits.
Customs protection of intellectual property rights: providing assistance to enterprises in trademark and copyright registration and filing, and ensuring protection of client intellectual property rights to the greatest possible extent, as well as advising clients with respect to parallel import and intellectual property infringement in the domestic market.
Confirmation of place of origin and logo: assisting clients to cope with the affairs associated with the confirmation of place of origin and labeling.
Quotas and import and export restrictions: providing advice with respect to affairs associated with quotas and import and export restrictions, assisting clients to obtain relevant certificates prior to transactions and handling customs clearance during transactions.
Arrangement of free trade zone and tariff-free zone recognition: fully utilizing the special customs supervision system in both free trade zones and tariff-free zones and providing clients with advice with respect to structuring arrangements of global supply chains, in order to realize efficient clearance and maximized tax benefits in conformance with all applicable laws and regulations.