Реферат: Customs Service

The World Customs Organization (WCO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. With its worldwide membership, the WCO is recognized as the voice of the global customs community. It is particularly noted for its work in areas covering the development of international conventions, instruments, and tools on topics such as commodity classification, valuation, rules of origin, collection of customs revenue, supply chain security, international trade facilitation, customs enforcement activities, combating counterfeiting in support of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), integrity promotion, and delivering sustainable capacity building to assist with customs reforms and modernization. The WCO maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) goods nomenclature, and administers the technical aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Customs Valuation and Rules of Origin.

History

In 1947, thirteen European countries established a Study Group to examine customs issues identified by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This work led to the adoption in 1950 of the Convention Establishing the Customs Co-operation Council (CCC), which was signed in Brussels. On January 26, 1953 the CCC’s inaugural session took place with the participation of 17 founding members. WCO membership subsequently expanded to cover all regions of the globe. In 1994, the organization adopted its current name, the World Customs Organization. Today, WCO members are responsible for customs controls on more than 98% of all international trade.

The WCO is internationally acknowledged as the global centre of customs expertise and plays a leading role in the discussion, development, promotion and implementation of modern customs systems and procedures. It is responsive to the needs of its members and its strategic environment, and its instruments and best-practice approaches are recognized as the basis for sound customs administration throughout the world.

The WCO’s primary objective is to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of member customs administrations, thereby assisting them to contribute successfully to national development goals, particularly revenue collection, national security, trade facilitation, community protection, and collection of trade statistics.

Instruments

In order to achieve its objectives, the WCO has adopted a number of customs instruments, including but not limited to the following:

1) The International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS Convention) was adopted in 1983 and came into force in 1988. The HS multipurpose goods nomenclature is used as the basis for customs tariffs and for the compilation of international trade statistics. It comprises about 5000 commodity groups, each identified by a six digit code arranged in a legal and logical structure with well-defined rules to achieve uniform classification. The HS is also used for many other purposes involving trade policy, rules of origin, monitoring of controlled goods, internal taxes, freight tariffs, transport statistics, quota controls, price monitoring, compilation of national accounts, and economic research and analysis.

2) The International Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of Customs procedures (revised Kyoto Convention or RKC) was originally adopted in 1974 and was subsequently revised in 1999; the revised Kyoto Convention came into force in 2006. The RKC comprises several key governing principles: transparency and predictability of customs controls; standardization and simplification of the goods declaration and supporting documents; simplified procedures for authorized persons; maximum use of information technology; minimum necessary customs control to ensure compliance with regulations; use of risk management and audit based controls; coordinated interventions with other border agencies; and a partnership with the trade. It promotes trade facilitation and effective controls through its legal provisions that detail the application of simple yet efficient procedures and also contains new and obligatory rules for its application. The WCO revised Kyoto Convention is sometimes confused with the Kyoto Protocol, which is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC).

3) ATA Convention and the Convention on Temporary Admission (Istanbul Convention). Both the ATA Convention and the Istanbul Convention are WCO instruments governing temporary admission of goods. The ATA system, which is integral to both Conventions, allows the free movement of goods across frontiers and their temporary admission into a customs territory with relief from duties and taxes. The goods are covered by a single document known as the ATA carnet that is secured by an international guarantee system.

4) The Arusha Declaration on Customs Integrity was adopted in 1993 and revised in 2003. The Arusha Declaration is a non-binding instrument which provides a number of basic principles to promote integrity and combat corruption within customs administrations.

5) The SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade was adopted in 2003. The SAFE Framework is a non-binding instrument that contains supply chain security and facilitation standards for goods being traded internationally, enables integrated supply chain management for all modes of transport, strengthens networking arrangements between customs administrations to improve their capability to detect high-risk consignments, promotes cooperation between customs and the business community through the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) concept, and champions the seamless movement of goods through secure international trade supply chains.

Administration

The WCO Secretariat is headed by a Secretary General, who is elected by the WCO membership to a five year term. The current WCO Secretary General is Kunio Mikuriya from Japan, who took office on 1 January 2009. Secretary General Mikuriya has made enhanced communication, capacity building, and research his top priorities. The WCO is governed by the Council, which brings together all Members of the Organization once a year, in a meeting chaired by an elected Chairperson. Additional strategic and management guidance is provided by the Policy Commission and the Finance Committee. Several WCO committees provide a platform for developing instruments and best practices on customs competencies.

Chapter III - Regulations for the Federal Customs Service of Russia: organization, management.

I. General Provisions

The Federal Customs Service (FCS) of Russia is a Federal executive authority, performing in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation the functions of control and supervision in the field of customs and the functions of a currency control agent and special functions of contraband control, abatement of other crimes and administrative violations.

The Federal Customs Service (FCS) is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation.

The FCS in its activity is guided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, federal laws, decrees and regulations of the President of the Russian Federation, international agreements of the Russian Federation, regulatory legal acts of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and also by present Regulations.

The FCS operates directly, through customs houses and representative offices of the Service abroad, in cooperation with other federal executive authorities, executive authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, municipal authorities, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, public associations and other organizations.

II. Authority Conferred by Office

The FCS has the following authority conferred to by the office in the established area of focus:

5.1. to perform levying of customs fees, taxes, antidumping, special and compensatory countervailing duties, customs dues, control accuracy for calculation and timely payment of such fees, taxes and duties, take measures for their recovery by enforcement;

5.2. to provide for compliance with the established prohibitions and limitations with respect to goods transferred across the customs border of the Russian Federation in accordance with the legislations of the Russian Federation on state regulation of foreign trade activity and international agreements of the Russian Federation;

5.3. to provide for uniform application by customs authorities of the customs legislation of the Russian Federation;

5.4.to perform customs processing and customs control;

5.5. to make decisions on classification of goods in accordance with the Nomenclature of Goods subject to Foreign Trade and provide for publication of such decisions;

5.6. to provide within its competence for the protection of intellectual property;

5.7. to make in accordance with established procedure preliminary decisions on classification of commodity in accordance with the Nomenclature of Goods subject to Foreign Trade, on the origin of goods from a specific country (country of goods' origin);