Filling in Customs Declarations Helped Save 35 Million AZN Annually

In 2015, importers of goods presented to the customs authorities more than 219 thousand declarations for imports of goods and vehicles. This is 8.4% more than in the previous year.

Provision of customs declarations is a paid service. However, neither the database of legal documents of the State Customs Committee, nor the registry "permission" of the Ministry of Economy has any reference to the legal document under which this fee is charged.

The "hot line" of SCC 195-6 did not answer this question of Turan IA.

Yesterday the State Customs Committee announced that it decided to reduce the fee for the service of drawing up customs declarations for customs clearance of goods and vehicles by 70%, and from January 27 on, this document will cost 50 manats (excluding VAT). Referring to this, we can assume that only in 2015 by drawing up these securities 35 million mantas was saved. If this payment also applies to export declarations (in 2015 there were filled 42.6 thousand export declarations), the sum will be even greater. The state budget has not received the funds, as the official financial statements of SCC do not mention them. How they are distributed inside the SCC is not reported.

The Chairman of the Center for Economic Research Ghalib Togrul told Turan the level of transparency of the customs authority is poor. "SCC, in compliance with the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers on the amount of customs duties in 2007, charges from 10 to 275 manats for customs clearance of goods. What is saved from this annually and how these funds are spent is kept a secret," said Togrul. --08B