Manner of conducting audit - CBEC's Customs Manual 2023 - Customs

4. Manner of conducting audit 4.1 Following guidelines are prescribed under the Customs Audit Regulations, 2018: (1) The proper officer may conduct audit either in his office or in certain cases at the premises of an auditee. (2) The proper officer may, where considered necessary, request the auditee to furnish documents, information or record including electronic record, as may be relevant to audit. (3) The proper officer shall give not less than fifteen days advance notice to the auditee to conduct audit at the premises of the auditee. (4) The proper officer may, where considered necessary, inspect the imported goods or export goods or dutiable goods at the premises of the auditee or request the auditee to produce sample, if available, with him. (5) The proper officer shall inform the auditee of the objections, if any, before preparing the audit report to provide him an opportunity to offer clarifications with supporting documents. (6) Where the auditee is in agreement with the audit findings, he may make voluntary payments of duty, interest or other sums, due, if any, in part or in full and the proper officer shall record the same in the audit report. (7) Where the proper office has asked the auditee to furnish information, document, record or sample for the purposes of audit, it shall be mandatory for the proper officer to inform outcome of such audit to the auditee. (8) The proper officer shall complete audit in cases where it is conducted at the premises of the auditee within thirty days from the date of starting of the audit. The jurisdictional Commissioner of Customs may extend the period of completion of audit from thirty days to sixty days, by an order in writing. 4.2 Post Clearance Audit (PCA) and Customs Audit Regulations, 2018 1. Types of Post Clearance Audit: a. Transaction Based Audit (TBA): Examination of BE/SB for verifying compliance to all the legal provisions and to check for any short levy or non levy. TBA normally does not require the auditor to visit the premise but if required it may involve a field audit also. b. Premise Based Audit (PBA): Here the legal compliance and correct assessment of Customs duties will be verified at the premise of the importers and exporters. Identification of auditees for the PBA will be done based on the risk parameters. PBA will be conducted once in two/three/five years for AEO T-1/T-2/T-3 respectively. c. Theme Based Audit (ThBA): This provides for the review of data relating to the entire business activity for a particular commodity or industry or issue. It provides for systematic approach to data collection and analysis of data to determine the likelihood of compliance. 2. Directorate General of Analysis and Risk Management has been entrusted the responsibility of identifying the potential focus areas and entities for various types of audit. Audit Comissionerates have started functioning in right earnest with encouraging results. [Refer Circular No. 02/2019-Customs dated 08.01.2019]