MOSCOW: Russian Customs Authorities have planned to emphasize a regular and systematic check on importing companies to identify their debt. As they are not facing a good budget and Cash flow balance.
On 8 September 2014, the Head of the Federal Customs Service Andrey Beliyaninov said;
“ We have been informed from reliable sources that, sent to the heads of several Customs Directorates – Central, North Western, and Far Eastern – letters of similar content regarding a shortfall in customs duty collection”.
In other words, there is a difference between the amounts the customs authorities had expected to receive, and the amount that was actually collected. The Customs Service believes that the shortfalls are due to companies understating the customs value of imported goods, or making false customs declarations.
To remedy this situation, the Customs Service has recommended that Customs Directorates and their subordinate customs authorities, which the Directorates are to alert to the situation, adopt measures aimed at improving the efficiency of customs control of imported goods by, in particular: strengthening the control of the customs value of the goods; analysing customs declarations in more detail; and taking measures to reduce situations when goods are released despite a suspicion that the information declared may not be reliable.
The names of companies to whom the customs authorities have been directed to give special attention are set out in attachments to the above letters. The lists contain both large international holdings and well-known Russian companies that import and sell on the Russian market products such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, automotive parts and vehicles, sporting goods, household appliances, clothes, etc.