A new customs law coming into force in November is expected to ease the country's trade, says Customs Department director-general Kulit Sombatsiri.
The law contains amended regulations, including setting cross-border cargo examination at a maximum of 30 days, he said, noting that the current law is silent on the maximum period and leads to some cargo being left idle in Thailand for a long time.
The new law will lower the reward given to customs officials and third-party whistleblowers on any customs avoidance, as requested by the private sector on concerns that the high reward could encourage persecution of businesses and unfair practices.
Under the new law, customs officials and whistleblowers will each receive evenly 20% of the penalty recovered from an offender to be distributed as a reward with a cap of 5 million baht.
Mr Kulit said customs officials and whistleblowers will obtain no more than 5 million baht each per case regardless of the value of the seized goods, and the seized product cannot be allotted into several cases in order to get higher rewards.
The current reward-sharing system allocates 55% of the penalty recovered from an offender to be distributed as a reward, without a cap on the amount.
Of this amount, 30% is given to third-party whistleblowers. The rest is shared among officials who identify the offenders and handle the case.
Moreover, the new law is expected to be fairer to importers by taking intention into a consideration when fining, he said, adding the court will have the discretion to fine wrongdoers who had no intention to break law at a maximum four times of goods value plus tax.
The Customs Department, under the new law, will adopt big data system to analyse goods that have frequent tax evasion track records to hasten the cargo examination period, he said.
Products that are at risk of tax evasion include steel, auto, plastic, agricultural goods, machinery and dietary supplements.
He said the examination of products imported by those who have good tax payment history will consume less time.
To create more transparency, customs officials from several units will work in tandem to discharge goods that are at risk of tax evasion instead of only one official who can discharge imported goods in the past, he said.
The teamwork system was adopted at Laem Chabang deep-sea port in July, while the system will be applied at Klong Toey port and Suvarnabhumi airport from October.