Source: Estadão (São Paulo - SP) - 29/05/2012

BRASILIA - The Export Declaration, which currently represents the beginning of the customs clearance of the goods, may be replaced by the electronic invoice. The idea that has been discussed between the Federal Revenue Service and the States is to simplify and streamline the process for the Brazilian exporter, reducing the volume of declaration issued or even ending the document requirement altogether.

“We can make the electronic invoice more robust, adding some additional information that is of interest to the State for the control of the State, such as the tax classification”, explained the Under Secretary for Customs and International Relations of the Federal Revenue, Ernani Checcucci. “With that, we can dispense with the declaration or, if there is still a need to collect more information, take it for a monthly or even an annual declaration. I no longer have point-to-point control to have more significant structural control, ”he said.

The undersecretary said that the monitoring of the goods will be complemented with a more effective cargo control system, which is also being developed. Thus, the Revenue will accompany all the transport of the goods that will be exported, from the factory or producer exit to the port or to the border of the country.

“We would have an export authorization decision process based on cargo control and electronic invoice information. With that, it could simplify and, up to the limit, eliminate the Export Declaration and ensure that the merchandise effectively left the country, ”he said.

Checcucci said he still has no deadline to make the changes, but he assured that there is already an agreement with the states. "We are in a well-evolved discussion process," he guaranteed. Only Pernambuco has not yet adhered to the electronic invoice.

Siscomex

Another change under study to streamline customs clearance of goods is the evolution of the Foreign Trade System (Siscomex) to a more modern platform. Checcucci said that the proposal is to create a single data entry portal that can be used by all agencies that need, in some way, to consent to foreign trade operations.

“Siscomex does not meet the expectations of all consenting parties, who have developed parallel systems. The idea is that we start looking at the other consentors and, in a process of partnership and cooperation, see how the IRS can contribute to these control agencies ”, he explained.

Seventeen government agencies exercise some kind of control over foreign trade, such as the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and the Ministry of Agriculture. The high number of consentors in the process is a bureaucratic barrier that the government has been trying to break down for years.