Customs fines Hankook Jiangsu factory again

On 13 January, Huai’an Customs issued an administrative penalty decision to Jiangsu Hankook Tire Co., Ltd. The subject of the penalty involved 271,000 yuan (approximately £32,500, €36,900) in tax underpayment. The penalty document issued by Huai’an Customs shows that Jiangsu Hankook failed to truthfully declare the price of bonded materials during the process of declaring to the customs.

It is reported that Jiangsu Hankook’s handling personnel were negligent when writing off some bonded materials and did not declare according to the weighted average price of the materials. This error caused the declared price of the 25 customs declaration forms to be inconsistent with the actual price, which made Jiangsu Hankook pay less tax. According to the data, the erroneous customs declarations involved a total of 49.1 million yuan (about £5.9 million, €6.7 million) of materials, and 12.8 million yuan (about £1.5 million, €1.7 million) of taxes should be paid.

Compared with the already paid tax of more than 12 million yuan, the amount of tax that Jiangsu Hankook underpaid was less than 300,000 yuan, which is relatively small. Huai’an Customs stated that underpaid taxes accounted for a relatively low proportion of the taxes that should be paid, and the violations were minor and could be punished lightly. In the end, the customs fined Jiangsu Hankook 136,000 yuan (about £16,000, €19,000).

Tyrepress China noticed that this was not the first time Huai’an Customs punished Jiangsu Hankook. In January 2022, Huai’an Customs also fined the tyre manufacturer 182,000 yuan (about £22,000, €25,000) for underpayment of taxes. At that time, Jiangsu Hankook underpaid about 364,000 yuan (about £44,000, €50,000) in taxes.