Monitoring of the Federal Legislation dated 16.08.2005

Decision of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 512 of August 12, 2005 on the Endorsement of the Rates of Import Customs Duties for Individual Types of Transport Vehicles Older Than 7 Years

From August 17, 2005, prolongs on the permanent basis the rates of the import customs duties for trucks with the codes of Foreign Trade Commodity Nomenclature of the Russian Federation 8704 21 390 1, 8704 21 990 1, 8704 31 390 1, 8704 31 990 1, 8704 32 990 2. The import duty for the mentioned transport vehicles makes EUR 1 per cu. cm of the engine volume.

For trucks with the codes of the Foreign Trade Commodity Nomenclature of the Russian Federation 8701 20 901 2, 8704 22 990 2, 8704 23 990 2, the amount of the import rate is increased form EUR 1 to EUR 2.2 per cu. cm. These rates are entered into force one month after the day of the official publication of the Decision.

Decision of the Plenum of the Higher Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation No. 29 of July 26, 2005 on Some Issues of the Practice of Processing of Disputes Pertaining to Determination of the Customs Cost of Commodities

The declaring party may prove the legality of the use of the method of determination of the custom cost of commodities chosen by them by presenting the documents and information obtained form other parties, including those in the sphere of production, shipment and sale of commodities. Refusal on the part of the declaring party to present explanations and substantiating documents in the absence of objective reasons preventing from their submission is regarded as a failure to fulfil the prerequisite of the documentary confirmation of the true cost of commodities.

If it is impossible to use the main method of determination of the cost of commodities, each subsequent method is used if the customs cost cannot be determined using the previous one. This means that the customs body must substantiate the impossibility of application of the previous methods. In this case, the customs body plea of the absence of the price and other information with it permitting to use any method of determination of the customs cost may be acceptable in substantiation to avoid to apply this method only if the impossibility of obtaining or use of such information, including the one in the customs databases, is confirmed objectively.

Letter of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation No. 03-04-11/162 of July 14, 2005 on the Value Added Tax in Cases of Return of Commodities

If the commodity is returned to the seller by the buyer not being the payer of the value added tax, there is not reason to accept for exemption with the seller VAT amounts for the returned commodities. The seller in such cases may enter appropriate changes in the invoices put forward when dispatching the commodity and recalculate their VAT payments to the budget.