People’s deputies have registered in parliament a draft law on a unified import regime for goods and items donated to the first and second tier local authorities.
The explanatory note to the draft law notes that local authorities cooperate with mayoralties and institutions of other states, and within the framework of these partnerships they are often provided with gratuitous donations (specialized transport, machinery, equipment).
Today, imports of such goods are subject to general import duty rules, which may include customs duty, customs procedure fee, value added tax (VAT) and, in some cases, excise duties. For used vehicles, additional useful life requirements apply.
Legislation provides some benefits for special purpose goods. But their list is small, and in practice, problems often arise during importation. The main one is that the application of the general taxation regime to donations leads to significant costs, cumbersome procedures and prevents the acceptance of donations or leads to their postponement or refusal.
“In response to this, the practice of adopting special laws of an exceptional nature, which authorize the importation of certain goods/vehicles to a particular locality, without payment of import duties, has evolved.”
Due to this approach, only those who manage to gain support in the parliament get benefits. This contradicts the principles of fairness and predictability, the deputies emphasize.
At the same time, most local governments, especially in rural areas and small towns, do not have the resources to purchase new vehicles and equipment. External donations often become the only real source of technical equipment for such services as sanitation, maintenance of local roads, public utilities, etc.,” the deputies emphasize.
The deputies’ initiative is aimed at eliminating these problems and creating a unified and predictable mechanism for importing equipment for them.
