January 28, 2010 in the State Duma of the Russian Federation held a hearing of the Expert Council on customs regulation of the Committee on Budget and Taxes on "The Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation in 2010"

The event brought together leading experts in the field of customs regulations, as well as owners and managers of major Russian and foreign companies - participants of foreign economic activity in order to analyze the situation over the formation of a single customs territory of the three states.

The meeting was attended by experts from the Bar association Customs & Corporate Lawyers (participating company Customs & Corporate Lawyers) - Head of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Advisory Council, a lawyer Oksana Kurochkina and Head of Legal Consulting – Irina Vakhterova.

For discussion of the audience made a number of topical issues: competence, functions and structure of the Customs Union Commission; Law "On Customs Regulation in the Russian Federation"; problems of clearance of goods subject to mandatory conformity; principles of levying indirect taxes on exports and imports of goods in the Customs Union.

The Customs Union was welcomed by representatives of business, expect a reduction of non-tariff measures at customs clearance, development of paperless transfer of information, the unification of the Common Customs Tariff of the union, and, ultimately, the simplification of customs procedures. However, January 1, 2010, participants of foreign economic activity faced a number of problems associated with the lack of enforcement of the new customs legislation. Speakers - representatives of the Secretariat of the Commission of the Customs Union, the Federal Customs Service, the Ministry of Finance informed the participants about the establishment of the Customs Union and the national legal framework.

The greatest number of questions to the speech Inna Osipova, Deputy Head of the Legal Support of legislative activities of the FCS of Russia, said that, unfortunately, so far, you can not determine the full scope of all the changes that need to be made to the Russian legislation in connection with the adoption of the Customs Code of the Customs Union. Osipova also noted that the draft law "On Customs Regulation in the Russian Federation", which is being developed by the Federal Customs Service on its own initiative, to include provisions on compulsory prior notification before declaring, introduced a procedure «ex oficio», allowing the customs authorities to suspend for 10 days the release goods bearing the trademarks, there are additional charges and collection of customs duties.

According to a member of the Expert Council on customs regulation, lawyer of Bar association Customs & Corporate Lawyers Konstantin Kurochkin, as a result of the legal framework of the Customs Union and national legislation in the field of customs regulations, all rules should be as close as possible to the norms of international law, while remaining transparent and understandable for participants in foreign economic activity.

For more information on the meeting of the Expert Council on customs regulation, you can get Irina Vakhterova by phone (495)623-5024 or e-mail [email protected]
Customs & Corporate Lawyers Press Service