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Your power to winCustoms disputes
The most common cause of a customs dispute is the actions of the customs authorities themselves, including certain violations of the law by their officials. Such abuse by customs officers may be driven by their superiors’ instructions to fulfil a “plan” for filling the state budget, under which a given customs office must, by any means, secure the receipt of a certain amount of customs payments within a set period; this leads, for example, to unjustified decisions setting a higher customs value of goods than the value of the goods at the contract price.
It should be noted that customs disputes are quite difficult to resolve, since they require the knowledge and ability to apply in practice both customs legislation, which is a fairly complex area of law, and procedural law, which governs how customs disputes are heard in courts.
Therefore, if a dispute with customs arises, the most appropriate solution is to seek professional legal assistance from an attorney who can establish what violations of the law customs has committed, identify the nature of the wrongful acts or inaction of the customs officers, and competently use the evidence and information obtained in court for the benefit of the client.
By challenging an unlawful decision, action or inaction of customs officers in court, you will not only defend your interests in the current case but also work for the future: once customs officers have faced professional legal resistance from your attorney, they are unlikely to openly abuse their official status next time.
providing written advice on customs disputes;
resolving disputes regarding non-declaration of property;
resolving disputes regarding the return of confiscated property;
judicial appeal against resolutions on administrative liability for violation of customs rules;
judicial appeal against decisions, actions or negligence of the customs authorities concerning the customs valuation of goods;
judicial appeal against the decisions of the customs concerning the identification of the goods code by UCGFEA;
support in disputes over the refund of customs and other payments paid to the budget by mistake or in excess, the collection of which is controlled by customs authorities;
preliminary consulting for legal entities on moving goods across the customs border of Ukraine in the mode of export, import, temporary importation, transit, etc.;
drafting requests, complaints, applications and other legal documents to settle a customs dispute;
representing clients in customs disputes in courts of all instances.
According to the law the burden of proving the wrongness of the declared customs value rests with the customs authority. But, as the practice shows, it is you who will have to prove that the customs value of the goods stated in the declaration is correct. Therefore, in case of a dispute with the customs office over the customs value of the goods, it is necessary to collect as much evidence as possible to confirm the correctness of the declared customs value: a foreign economic contract for the goods supply, invoices, international transport invoice (CMR), seller's price list etc.
In case, when the true value of the imported goods cannot be determined by the price of identical or similar goods, the customs authority have the right to use the price of goods, the terms of delivery of which differ from the conditions of delivery of the estimated goods, based on the nearest equivalent, as a basis for adjusting the customs value of the goods by the reserve method cost.
Customs payments charged by the importer as a result of an error detected by the revenue and duties authority during a documentary audit are considered an overpayment if the correct amounts of such payments are set in the authority’s decision issued following that audit; otherwise, an overpayment arises only after the importer has amended the customs declaration as regards the amounts of customs payments charged.
The right to claim a refund of overpaid customs payments arises only after the decision on the adjustment of the customs value of the goods that caused the overpayment has been set aside.
The decision of the customs in case of violation of customs regulations on administrative responsibility prosecution can be appealed against both in the pre-judicial (administrative) and judicial order by applying to the local general court as an administrative court with an administrative lawsuit to cancel the customs decision, in order of the Code of Administrative Justice of Ukraine.
Goods with total invoice value which does not exceed the equivalent of 10,000 euros, except for the cases specified in the Customs Code of Ukraine, are not subject to written declaration when exported (shipped) by citizens outside the customs territory of Ukraine.
Although under the Customs Code of Ukraine evidence in a case of violation of customs rules may be any factual data on the basis of which the existence or absence of a violation of customs rules, the guilt of the person who committed it and other circumstances relevant to the correct resolution of the case are established, the main evidence in this category of cases is the report on the violation of customs rules.
Therefore, in this category of cases, the report on the violation of customs rules should first of all be checked for legal defects: there have been cases where, even though the actions of the declarant or another person moving goods across the border showed signs of a violation of customs rules, it was possible to have such persons cleared of liability in court because of formal defects in the report made by customs officers when drawing it up.
An administrative penalty for a violation of customs rules may be imposed no later than six months from the date the offence was detected.