The Verkhovna Rada has adopted the draft Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Customs Code of Ukraine and Certain Other Legislative Acts of Ukraine” (registration No. 8130-d) in the second reading as well as in general. The Law sets forth a new version of the Customs Code.

The Rada considered several alternative draft laws to amend the Customs Code in May 2011. It finally adopted the draft Law submitted by the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Banking Activity, Tax and Customs Policy in the first reading.

The amendments to the Code are targeted to bring national legislation in line with international law and into compliance with Ukraine’s international obligations. These include provisions of the Istanbul and Kyoto Conventions as well as the intentions to harmonize and develop the range of customs formalities.
The following novelties are worth noting:

  1. possibility to perform customs clearance of goods at any customs authority (regardless of the company’s place of registration);
  2. tough timeframes for customs clearance of goods have been stipulated (not longer than four hours);
  3. possibility to use a preliminary declaration to perform certain customs procedures (in particular, control over delivery of goods to the destination customs authority, placement of goods under temporary storage, etc.);
  4. possibility to declare goods before their actual importation into Ukraine or before delivery to the customs authority of destination;
  5. declarants are released from liability for non-intentional mistakes;
  6. the value of commodities exempted from import duties and taxes payable upon importation has been increased to EUR2K;
  7. possibility to accept the customs value of goods based on transaction value automatically. Control over the accuracy of customs value determination after customs clearance of goods can be performed only if customs value was determined based on the primary method – the transaction value method;
  8. regulations for post audit procedures have been developed; in particular provisions have been brought in line with Tax Code of Ukraine requirements
  9. requirements for the authorized economic operator have been defined.

If the President of Ukraine signs the Law, the new Customs Code will come into force on 1 January 2012, except for several clauses devoted to the peculiarities of electronic information exchange.
We will keep you informed of further developments in customs legislation.