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‘The aircraft tractor’ hauls an undamaged vehicle - the rate of the duty is higher than it hauls a broken-down vehicle! The correct classification of goods is important for the proper and correct … payment of customs duties.

In the European governance the EU legislation distinguishes between the so called “formal law” and the “informal law”. The latter also known as measures of soft law. Formal law compromises regulations, … directives and decisions, whereby recommendations and opinions, as well as other methods of developing policy: e.g. policy guidelines are considered soft law. Practical examples of informal law in the field of customs are the Guidelines for Customs Valuation of Goods, the Customs Valuation Compendium, the Transit Guide. What is the significance of these documents in practice?

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) took another decision regarding customs valuation and adjustment of transaction value. In this decision CJEU analysed legal importance of compensation … paid for the right to exclusively distribute goods. CJEU concluded that such compensation was the condition of sale and thus must be reflected in the customs value of goods. The fact that compensation was agreed on in a separate contract (not in a sale-purchase agreement) and that it was limited in time did not change conclusions of the CJEU. It is yet another signal for the importers to carefully examine all the payments between them and the seller and evaluate their possible influence on customs value of imported goods.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union has answered the question of whether goods made partly of tobacco and other materials should be subject to excise duty on tobacco in … its entirety or only in part of the composition of the tobacco as one of the consisting substances.

Both in the practice of tax disputes and during tax inspections or investigations carried out by the customs authorities, the following question arises quite often: which particular person the … customs authorities are entitled to qualify as the debtor and, accordingly, to calculate (to that or another particular person) the additional import taxes. In this article, we will review the provisions of the EU Union Customs Code (UCC) and the relevant case-law of the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), which helps to answer these questions and allows businesses to defend their rights and legitimate interests in disputed situations.

Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) remained with its position that the economic value of software should be added to the transaction value of imported goods, despite the fact that it was … designed in the European Union and transferred to the third-country manufacturer free of charge.

It has now been established by the supreme judicial authority, that it is possible to amend the customs declaration subsequently, even with regard to the information relating to the identity … of the declarant. However, with some limitations, which we point out in the overview of the recent judgement of the European Court of Justice.

The goal of the EU law on customs valuation is to introduce a fair, uniform, and neutral system excluding the use of arbitrary or fictitious customs values. The customs value must therefore reflect … the real economic value of an imported product and take into account all of the elements of that product that have economic value. In this article we are going to review how the Bulgarian courts apply the provisions related to customs valuation, more specifically, to the inclusion of royalties in the customs value of the goods.

National courts often make use of the possibility to seek a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia recently raised … a very technical question, which, however, concerns the general interpretation of a provision of the Combined Nomenclature of the EU regarding classification of the copper alloy ingots. The article overviews the case and its importance for the uniform tariff classification of goods in the EU Member States.

In this article, by evaluating the latest case law of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (Order of 27 May 2020 in Administrative Case No. eA-2474-968 / 2020, etc.), we will review … how the provisions of WTO law in national courts have been (and are) applied in the Republic of Lithuania in tax disputes with customs authorities and what are the possibilities for relying directly on them to defend the rights and legitimate interests of the taxpayers.

The article seeks to identify legal issues related to the implementation of economic activities in maritime areas by analyzing the customs law of the European Union (EU) and its regulations (Union … Customs Code (UCC) and the regulations related to its implementation) defining the boundaries of the EU customs territory, determining the customs origin of goods and describing the order of the customs procedures. The author also presents suggestions on how the identified legal issues should be addressed by amending EU customs legislation and what are the tax risks associated with them.

What happens if the goods placed under customs supervision are stolen? Is that circumstance to be regarded as relieving the person in charge of the goods from related tax obligations arising … from the release for free circulation? May the national legislation of an EU Member State impose a pecuniary penalty, which equals to the amount of import duties or some other amount? Or may be both imposed – the payment of duties and the pecuniary penalty?

The antidumping duties, which are often imposed to protect internal market from unfair competition of foreign goods, can reach up to 100 percent of the customs value of the goods or even more … when the average rate of conventional customs duties does not exceed as much as 5 per cent. For this and other reasons, the question of the possibilities of protection of the business entities, exporter‘s and importer‘s rights as well as legitimate interests in cases of application of such duties becomes critical and the possibilities of challenging them remain very important and will be discussed in this article, by analyzing judicial practice in the tax disputes in the EU courts, and, in particular, national courts in the EU Member States, namely, the Republic of Lithuania.

From a tariff classification point of view, the scope of the term ‘medical products’ has been and continues to be controversial in some instances. For businesses, classification of goods that … may or may not have medical application outside of Harmonised System Chapter 30 can result in their goods attracting a significant customs duty rate. This article summarises the case where heat patches, designed to treat muscle injuries and soreness, were originally classified by Commission Implementing Regulation 2016/1140 under heading 3824, but following an appeal to the ECJ, these items were found to be a products of heading 3005.

The article seeks to answer the question what are the specific practical regulatory problems currently facing the international trade operators engaged in international trade business between … the EU Member States and the Republic of India and how they can be reflected/solved in the possible free trade agreement between them. Problematic areas of the application of customs duties are being identified on the basis of a case study of tax disputes regarding imports of goods from India on EU level (in the Court of Justice of the EU and national level of the EU Member States (using the Republic of Lithuania as the main example)).

The alcoholic drinks sector has seen much product innovation in recent years. Some of this product innovation has been to tariff engineer products that can avail of the lower excise rates associated … with fermented beverages relative to spirituous beverages. Following a series of landmark court cases, there is now extensive case law in place giving instruction as to how to classify these products.

The article analyses judicial cases of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), which were initiated by the national courts in the Baltic States and were related to the tariff classification of … goods. The author presents both general issues of the proper application of the Combined Nomenclature of the EU in the Baltic States (application of general rules for the interpretation of Combined Nomenclature) as well as the relationship between the Combined Nomenclature and other legal sources, which also regulates tariff classification of goods. Finally, the article also addresses some specific questions of tariff classification which arose in the Baltic States, such as classification of heterogenous (complex) products under the practice of the CJEU.

Disputes over Binding Tariff Information (BTI) are not rare in the courts. In May this year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered two rulings in disputes regarding BTI decisions. In … one case the rulings of ECJ justified the position of customs authorities and in the other - of business.