Highest customs duty to fall from 100,000 to 30,000 rubles after Russian WTO accession
MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - The highest customs duty will be cut from 100,000 rubles to 30,000 rubles upon Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), head of the Russian Economic Development Ministry's trade negotiations department Maxim Medvedkov said at the conference 'New in Customs Legislation: Theory and Practice' in Moscow on Thursday.
"Russia will reduce the maximum level of customs fees to roughly 30,000 rubles. Right now it reaches up to 100,000 rubles for some goods," he said.
However, the current customs collection structure will not change yet, he said. The negotiators managed to prove that the current system does not violate WTO rules. Duties are based on the cost of services provided by the customs authorities during customs clearance, Medvedkov said.
At the request of WTO members, Russia has committed to submitting additional information on how these fees are formulated and how they are levied, he said. This will serve to make the customs collection system "more transparent," he said.
Russia's Federal Customs Service (FCS) told journalists that the highest customs duty is indeed 100,000 rubles at present, and it applies to all goods whose customs value exceeds 30 million rubles. Last year, the total amount of collected customs duties (including both fees for customs clearance and duties on storage and customs convoy) was 31.37 billion rubles, the FCS said.
Once Russia officially joins the WTO, the country's tax system cannot discriminate between domestic and imported goods, Medvedkov said. Up until now, in certain cases agricultural goods were not subject to the VAT, which also applied to several imported goods in the framework of coordination in space research. Once Russia joins the WTO, such a practice has to be abolished, Medvedkov said.
"If we have zero VAT for carrots, then it has to be zero for imported carrots, too," he added.
