The implementation of Benford's law testing method to detect fraud in customs audit

Benford's Law has been widely used as one of the risk analysis tools in detecting the possibility of fraud. The purpose of this study is to examine whether Benford's Law test method can be used as a complementary alternative method in identifying audit objects that are indication of fraud. Companies examined in this study are within the scope of the General Audit conducted in Indonesia, a developing country, during the period of 2016 with the transaction time for the period of 2014-2015. These companies are General Importers and Manufacturer Importers having more than 1,000 transactions in one audit period. The data set are divided into Customs Value and Total Charges for each sample. Benford's Law test results show that companies that did not pass the Second Digit test on any of the Customs Value or Total Charges and did not pass the First Two-Digit test on either the Customs Value or the Total Charges have a tendency to get a lower audit finding value than the companies that passed Second Digit test in Customs Value or Total Charges but did not pass First-Two Digit test either at Customs Value or at Total Charges. This study aims to assist Customs and Excise (CE) Auditor in summarizing the time required to determine the audit object that could be indication of fraud in relation to customs charges. Implementation of risk mitigation analysis and customs value determination using six methods in stages could be more effective by examining the Benford's Law test results that have been previously found at the time of determination of audit object.