Customs

On 17 May 2012 the President’s Decree was officially published, it featured the instruction to the Government to develop the alterations to the customs legislation of Ukraine, which were incorporated into the Draft Law No. 10452. 

In particular, the President instructed to elaborate and include the draft law on amendments to the new Customs Code of Ukraine into the agenda of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, namely, in respect of:

• the improvement of application procedure of customs value of goods correcting and control over correctness of its determination;
• the specification of the definition “false information”, which is used in the articles 483 and 485 of the new Customs Code of Ukraine;
• the procedure of value added tax and excise duty payment during foreign economic activity operations.

It is worth noting that the European Business Association in its proposals to the Customs Code which were addressed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as well as to the President’s Administration, constantly emphasised that the use of the term “false information” creates the conditions for the confiscation of goods and the imposition of substantial fines in case the documents contain mistakes, even technical.

According to the standard rule 23 of the Special Annex H to the International Convention on the simplification and harmonisation of Customs procedures” (Kyoto Convention) “the severity or the amount of any penalties applied in an administrative settlement of a Customs offence shall depend upon the seriousness or importance of the Customs offence committed and the record of the person concerned in his dealings with the Customs”. Thus the use of confiscation and 100% penalty if any mistake are unacceptable.

It should be noted that the Draft Law “On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine Regarding the Adjustment of Certain Provisions of Tax and Customs Legislation” No.10452 is included into Verkhovna Rada’s agenda of the second reading on 7 June. In particular, it contains provisions on false information. Namely, the Article 483 of the Customs Code of Ukraine proposes to replace the word “data” by the following words “information regarding the title of goods, their weight (number), country of origin, the sender and /or recipient, the number of packages, their marks and numbers, false information necessary to determine the product code under UKT ZED and its customs value ”.

We sincerely thank top officials for business community’s proposals consideration and look forward to further customs legislation improvement.