The customs issues of the European Union and Serbia: The customs base

• Main Author: Vranješ Mile
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Law 2012-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova: Pravni Fakultet u Novom Sadu
• Subjects: customs; customs base; customs value of goods; methods for determination of customs value of goods; European Union; Serbia
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0550-2179/2012/0550-21791203051V.pdf

Regulation (EC) No 450/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 laying down the Community Customs Code (Modernized Customs Code), Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 of 12 October 1992 establishing the Community Customs Code, The Customs Law of Serbia of 26 March 2010 in a very detailed and extensive way regulate customs base. These legal documents envisage the methods of determination of customs value: the primary ones, which are based on the transaction value, but also the secondary ones, which are based on other methods for determination of customs value of goods. The customs services of the EU Member States have on their disposal six methods for determination of customs value of goods. Those methods in the mentioned acts of the EU and Serbia are transposed from the Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994. The fact that mentioned acts of the EU and Serbia request that the customs value of goods must be clearly and precisely determined, that means to be determined in the same way, is understandable because the customs base is one of the most significant elements of customs. There are many reasons for that: in a certain way, the customs base is in relation with all other elements of customs structure; from the procedure in which the customs base is determined, that means from its universality depends the amount of income which will the EU and Serbia, on that ground, collect to finance public expenditure predicted in the budget; and most of the customs on the imported goods in the EU is determined ad valorem.