Customs Administration in Russia: Directions of Improvement[Таможенное Администрирование В России: Направления Совершенствования]

Modern customs control in Russia, despite the efforts at its optimization, retains a large number of problems. Long terms of cargo registration, the complexity of procedures, and the extensive amount of documents and information provided increase the costs of business and lead to higher prices. Information disunity of the customs and tax services preserves loopholes for using numerous schemes for evading customs and tax payments. The existing program documents for customs focus on gradual improvements in customs administration and keep the underlying technologies and business processes unchanged, thus preserving the main problems. In this article, based on the analysis, the authors propose a system of measures for improving customs administration in Russia, aimed at increasing the efficiency of its business processes and taking into account the best practices in the field of customs, recommendations of the World Customs Organization and other international bodies, as well as new opportunities for state control organization (supervision) in connection with the widespread introduction of information technologies. The changes proposed by the authors provide for the separation of fiscal and non-fiscal control functions and the redistribution of functions among controlling (overseeing) authorities, transferring control over the correctness of customs payments to stages before goods are imported and after their release for domestic consumption, as well as other key changes in business processes of customs administration. It appears that the proposed model of customs administration will improve the efficiency of exportimport transaction control and the collection of customs payments, while simplifying, speeding up and cheapening administrative procedures.