An importer of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring coverings approached the Business Ombudsman Council due to systematic adjustments of the customs value of its goods by a regional customs office. According to the complainant, the customs authorities repeatedly refused to recognize the declared customs value under the first valuation method, which resulted in additional assessments and extra financial costs.
At the time of filing the complaint, the business already had a number of court decisions in its favor: the courts had annulled more than a dozen decisions by the customs authority on customs value adjustments. Nevertheless, each new shipment was accompanied by a repetition of the same problem. At the initial stages of this situation, the mechanism of administrative appeal to the central body of the Customs Service was not used, and the court was effectively the only means of protection relied upon by the complainant.
The Council analyzed the situation and joined efforts to resolve the complainant’s problem both on a case-by-case basis (in particular, by participating in the review of a complaint against one of the customs value adjustment decisions) and at a systemic level. In particular, the issue of systematic disregard by customs authorities of court positions, as well as the substance of customs’ claims regarding the declared customs value of the complainant’s goods, was repeatedly raised at meetings of the Expert Group with the participation of the management of the State Customs Service.
Although individual administrative appeals did not produce immediate results, continuous communication and a focus on the systemic nature of the problem ultimately had an effect. The customs authorities changed their approach to the clearance of this importer’s goods: shipments began to be cleared using the first method of customs valuation — without adjustments.
