Export/Import Procedures and Documentation, 5th Edition

Chapter 10

Determining the Proper Value to Declare

Standardization of the value for customs duty purposes began shortly after World War II with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Section VII. It stated that the value to be declared for assessing customs duties should be based on the actual value of the imported merchandise and not the value of similar merchandise originating in the country of import or on arbitrary or fictitious values. However, there was great discretion as to what “actual value” meant among countries party to the GATT, and other methods of valuation were allowed to be “grandfathered” in even if they had no similarity to the new definition. Although most countries used the Brussels Definition of Value, which was ...