De minimis now P10k

1937 law giving tax exemption to imports costing P10 below amended

MANILA – Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has approved a Customs Administrative Order (CAO) that raises the tax-exemption value of small importations from the current P10 to P10,000.

Under the CAO, de minimis or small value importations shall be subject to non-intrusive examinations, such as x-rays or other equivalent devices on a purely random basis, according to Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko.

It is the first amendment on the value of de minimis imports since the P10 limit was imposed under Republic Act 1937 about 59 years ago.

Among the touted benefits of this CAO are the increased efficiency in the processing of de minimis importations through a streamlined process that utilizes information and communication technology (ICT) and the deployment of freed up capacity to improve customs monitoring and control of riskier importations.

The CAO states that the de minimis value “shall be adjusted by the

Secretary of Finance every three years after the effectivity of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) to its present value using the Consumer Price Index, as published by the Philippine Statistics Authority.”

The CAO is a product of public consultations conducted by the Department of Finance (DOF)Bureau of Customs (BOC), and will be the first in a series of CAOs to be enacted to implement the CMTA.

Tionko highlighted the use of ICT in the public consultations where inputs, comments and recommendations from the public were collated in a DOF microsite.