The Korea Customs Service’s Customs Valuation and Classification Institute announced that it held the ’42nd Customs Valuation Forum Regular Academic Seminar’ at the Seoul Main Customs Office on December 15. The Customs Valuation Forum leads joint research on customs valuation among the public, private, and academic sectors through annual academic seminars and contributes to the development of customs valuation systems by proposing related institutional improvements.
About 100 members, including professors in international trade, customs brokers, and customs officials, attended the seminar. They discussed topics such as the rational determination of taxable prices based on the cost-plus method for transfer pricing transactions and the customs valuation of imported goods in various types of e-commerce. These topics were based on award-winning papers from the 2025 Customs Valuation Research Paper Contest.
Kang Byung-ro, head of the Customs Valuation and Classification Institute, stated that transfer pricing of multinational companies is one of the major issues in customs valuation. He emphasized the need to clearly determine whether transfer prices based on costs in transactions between related parties are influenced by special relationships and to establish rational criteria for determining taxable prices based on costs according to Article 34 of the Customs Act.
Forum Chairman Son Sung-soo held a meeting with external customs valuation experts before the seminar to listen to the difficulties and suggestions of the related industry regarding international customs valuation trends and recent issues. He stressed the importance of supporting companies’ honest reporting and strengthening fair supervision and management of non-compliant companies.