Ebay. Ukraine. About Customs and Shipments - 2012

    A small introduction. In 2010 on Habré the post of Ebay was published . Ukraine. About customs and shipments , in which aevdox spoke about the nuances of the delivery of goods from Ebay in relation to Ukraine and, especially, about the Ukrainian customs rules. After reading this post, I felt that I had something to add to it, and, not being a habator, I wrote a letter to the author. So there appeared "Upd # 3". Aevdox

    unexpectedly contacted me last nightand said that, firstly, they write to him that the 2010 information is outdated and it would be useful to bring the article up to date, and secondly, he is ready to become my habrapapa. Thus, this post turned out. Further in the text, I assume that the reader is already familiar with the original post and perceives this as its logical continuation.

    Now to the point. With the adoption in 2012 of the new Customs Code of Ukraine(hereinafter referred to as the TC) and its entry into force, the information in the article “Ebay. Ukraine. About Customs and Shipments ”is immediately hopelessly out of date. First of all, because the new code abolished the normative legal acts to which I referred in my supplement (Law No. 2681-III, Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 1652), and now the code itself regulates these relations. He regulates them differently. I tried to figure out what has changed for us, ordinary buyers with Ebay, and update the information in the article accordingly.

    In short - "life has become easier, life has become more fun."


    I’ll start from the end - with my supplement to the previous article, in which I pointed out the difference between the concepts of “goods” and “personal items”. There will be a small fly in the ointment, which, however, will not spoil our barrel of honey.

    If earlier the legislation clearly separated the concepts of “goods” and “personal belongings” (the Decree clearly stated that personal belongings “are not goods”, and the Law stated that goods are taxed by customs), now in the understanding of the Customs Code in general all movable things, currency values, cultural values, as well as electricity (sic!) are goods (clause 57 h. 1 article 4 of the LC).

    However, the only bad thing about this is that the obvious distinction “personal belongings / goods” has disappeared, into which you can poke the nose of a negligent customs officer, should you come across this. The category “personal items” still remained, just now they also relate to goods:
    Personal belongings are goods that are new and used, intended to meet the usual everyday needs of an individual, which correspond to the purpose of the specified person’s stay in Ukraine or abroad, are transported through the customs border of Ukraine in hand luggage, accompanied or unaccompanied baggage, international mail and express shipments and are not intended for entrepreneurial activity, alienation or transfer to third parties (paragraph 36, paragraph 1, article 4 of the LC).

    From this definition, you can notice a curious moment: on the one hand, now personal things can be sent by international mail and courier services. On the other hand, it is not entirely clear how the sending by mail is consistent with the “conformity of the purpose of the person’s stay abroad”.
    If everything was more or less clear with personal things before, I could go abroad (or from abroad) and bring personal things with me, then how the law will be practically implemented in the situation with personal things sent by mail (taking into account that the customs clearance of mail takes place in a completely different place, not where I physically cross the border, and without my presence), I can not even theoretically imagine.

    Okay, let’s leave the legal conflicts on the conscience of the legislator and return to our personal belongings and customs duties.
    Personal items are not subject to customs payments . Three norms of the new code point to this immediately:
    Customs payments are not paid if, in accordance with this Code, the Tax Code of Ukraine, other laws of Ukraine, as well as international treaties, the goods are not subject to customs duties (paragraph 1 of paragraph 1 of article 292 of the Customs Code of Ukraine).

    Personal things that are moved (sent) by citizens across the customs border of Ukraine are subject to declaration by taking actions, either orally or, at the request of the owner or the customs authority, are not subject to customs payments in writing and are exempted from submitting documents issued by state bodies for customs control and customs clearance of goods (Article 369 of the Labor Code of Ukraine).

    When importing (sending) to the customs territory of Ukraine, citizens exempt from customs duties personal items defined in Article 370 of this Code (clause 1 part 10 of article 374 of the Labor Code of Ukraine)

    The list of personal items is enshrined in article 370 of the Labor Code of Ukraine. I won’t rewrite it all, but I note that there are still mobile phones (in the amount of not more than two pieces), laptops (also not more than two pieces), and the number of musical instruments (to the delight of people asking about guitars) is also increased to two pieces.
    Here I consider it appropriate to dwell on the fact that the norm is imperative, because the wording in it (quote) is “considered to be personal things”. They cannot be considered at the discretion of the customs officer, but are already considered, as the law says. I highlight this point especially, since in the event of a dispute with a customs officer, he may prove to be a weighty argument.

    Which conclusion is that?
    As before, personal belongings are not subject to customs duties when transporting them across the border, regardless of their value.. The list of items related to personal belongings is enshrined in article 370 of the Labor Code of Ukraine.
    There was a curious (but purely theoretical) opportunity to even send personal items by international mail and courier services, and they should also be exempted from customs payments. Unfortunately, its practical implementation is a big question.

    Now, what is probably interesting to most habiturators is the direct purchase of goods on Ebay with their further postal transfer to the territory of Ukraine. Information about their customs clearance since 2010 is also outdated.

    And here we have - “solid flash pianos”.
    First of all, if earlier the concept of “appraised value” was used and, as it was correctly noted, the appraised value did not necessarily equal the real value of the purchase, now the concept of “invoice value” is used.
    For the purposes of taxation of goods that are transported (sent) by citizens across the customs border of Ukraine, the invoice value of these goods indicated in cash or commodity receipts, labels, other retail documents containing information about the value of such goods is applied (part 1 of article 368 of the Customs Code Ukraine).

    True, the fourth part of the same article 368 nevertheless stipulates that if there is evidence of the inaccuracy of the declared invoice value of the goods, the customs authorities determine their value independently, based on prices of identical or similar (similar) goods. But we can hope that the procedure for such an independent determination of value will be the exception rather, since it still requires proof of the unreliability of the declared price, and not just general considerations.

    Secondly , if goods with a value of less than 200 euros were not taxed previously, then the new code raised this bar to 300 euros:
    Goods (except for excisable goods), the total invoice value of which does not exceed the equivalent of 300 euros, transported (forwarded) to the customs territory of Ukraine to the address of one recipient in one dispatch from one consignor in international mail, to the address of one recipient within one day in international express - departures, as well as in unaccompanied baggage, are subject to oral declaration on the basis of shipping documents and are not subject to customs duties (part 6 of article 374 of TC Ukraine us).

    It is worth paying attention to the fact that there are no restrictions on receiving mail items per day, month, etc. not. The amount of 300 euros should not be exceeded "in one dispatch from one sender to one recipient", that's all. If you receive five different packages from different people for 200 euros each - everything is in order.
    For items received by courier services and in unaccompanied baggage, the restrictions are stricter: no more than 300 euros per day per recipient at all.

    I’ll mention right away that if for international mail and international express shipments the delivery cost is not taken into account when calculating the invoice cost (that is, if you have 285 Euros of goods and 30 Euros of delivery - everything is fine, we fit), then for goods transported in unaccompanied baggage, the cost of their insurance and transportation (freight) is also taken into account. This is expressly provided for in Part 2 of Art. 368 of the Labor Code of Ukraine.

    Thirdly , good news (two at once!) For those who decided to buy something more expensive than 300 euros. The customs clearance procedure for such goods has also become significantly milder.
    Previously, as you know, everything that costs more than 200 euros was subject to an import duty of 20% of its full value, and what happened would be charged 20% VAT on top, as a result of which 44% of taxes and fees were added to the original price.
    Good news everyone! The import duty rate has halved and now stands at 10%. But this is not all: now the duty and VAT are not calculated on the full cost of the goods, but only on that part of it, which exceeds 300 euros.
    Goods (except for excisable goods) that are transported (forwarded) in international postal or international express items, in unaccompanied baggage, the total invoice value of which exceeds the equivalent of 300 euros, but does not exceed the equivalent of 10,000 euros <...>, are subject to written declaration in the manner established for citizens, and are subject to import duty at a rate of 10 percent and VAT at the rate established by the Tax Code of Ukraine. The tax base for such goods is part of their total invoice value in excess of the equivalent of 300 euros (part 7 of article 368 of the Labor Code of Ukraine).

    I note that these rules do not apply to goods worth more than 10,000 euros, as well as cultural property over 50 years old and antiques over 100 years old. For simplicity, we are not going to delve into such subtleties here and we will assume that if a single haber guard orders something like that, then he already knows what he is doing. I think the upper threshold of 10,000 euros covers the bulk of orders from Ebay.

    So, in the bottom line, we have:
    1. Increased from 200 to 300 euros the maximum value of goods not subject to taxes and fees.
    2. The amount that will have to be paid for customs clearance of goods worth more than 300 euros has significantly decreased. First of all, due to the fact that now taxes are not subject to the full cost of the goods, but only its size that exceeds the limit of 300 euros. In addition, the rate of import duty was reduced twice (from 20 to 10 percent) (VAT remained the same).
    3. Personal items transported across the border are not subject to customs duties, as before. Only the names of normative legal acts and article numbers have changed, which should be referred to when defending one’s position.

    Thank you all for your attention and good luck when shopping abroad!

    PS As follows from the introduction, this is my first post here. I hope the community finds it useful. For any errors, typos or inaccuracies (including when translating the texts of Ukrainian legislative acts into Russian), please feel free to inform me in your personal mail. I will also be grateful for any comments and tips on posting here.

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