Officials from the Federal Antimonopoly Service have chosen the tax operator for goods purchased by Russians abroad

This month, officials announced the need for measures that should "ensure equal conditions for companies in the Russian Federation using the Internet." In fact, we are talking about the introduction of value added tax on all parcels imported into the country. Changes in the legislation necessary for the introduction of a new tax, commissioned to develop Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is necessary so that not only domestic, but also foreign companies pay VAT. Previously, only Russian online stores paid 18% VAT on every purchase, while foreign sellers do not pay anything in Russia.



As a result, some Russian Internet companies registered abroad to avoid having to pay VAT. The first to introduce such a tax was the Association of Internet Trading Companies (ACIT), representing the interests of Russian online stores. This was done back in 2016, in August. Now officials are actively working to make the necessary changes to the legislation. The other day, the tax operator on foreign purchases of Russians was chosen, as reported by Izvestia.



Journalists of the publication have learned that the National Payment Card System (NSPK) is likely to administer the payment of VAT when buying Russians in foreign online stores. At the moment, this organization is the operator of the national payment system "World", it also performs the duties of a nationwide center for processing operations on bank cards of citizens of the Russian Federation. As far as one can understand, tax exchanges instead of sellers will be dealt with by platforms-aggregators of goods like AliExpress.



According to representatives of the FAS, the collection of VAT from foreign online stores is an excellent opportunity to equalize competitive conditions for domestic and foreign sellers. A general concept of the work of the new tax system has now been adopted, only technical details will be worked out in the future. In addition to AliExpress, VAT plans to oblige to pay eBay, Amazon and other sites. They will have to register with the Federal Tax Service and once a month make tax payments for the purchases of the Russian customers of the sellers whose goods are placed by the aggregators.



“In the mind of the consumer, the aggregator is always associated with the seller. At the same time, it is very difficult and long process to register hundreds of thousands of individual sellers represented on one site. International trade activity has changed, aggregators were introduced in the legal field. According to some participants of the meeting, they should pay all the necessary taxes, ”said Alexey Fedorov, President of the Association of E-commerce Companies.





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It turns out that the price specified on any of the aggregators of goods, if the buyer from Russia is interested in this product, will be added 18% of the original price.



NSPK decided to make the VAT operator because now this system tracks all transactions of Russians, including purchases inside and outside the country. Well, since each payment system assigns a unique code to any seller, it will be possible to find out from it whether this seller paid taxes or not.



At the same time, the FAS promised those Internet aggregators who registered with the Federal Tax Service and are willing to pay 18% for Russian buyers, to open a green corridor for goods purchased at such sites. The remaining parcels will be opened at the border and estimate their cost in order to add VAT to the original amount. In this case, an additional payment will have to be made to the recipient of the parcel. Moreover, the payment of services for the opening and evaluation of the purchased goods will be added to the VAT amount.



Various companies attended the meeting with FAS, including eBay. Representatives of this organization said that they do not have information about what products and for what amount different users order. The agency, in turn, asked foreign sites to provide data on the organization of their work and financial flows, and also to tell about what taxes and in which countries they pay.



The head of the Russian representative office of AliExpress, Mark Zavadsky, reminded the meeting participants that the legislation of the Russian Federation provides for the possibility to tax only those goods that are already in Russia. This means that VAT cannot be extended to trade outside the country. In addition, Zavadsky believes that AliExpress is not a seller of goods, and therefore cannot act as a tax agent.



Other representatives of this sphere agree with this idea. “Why should aggregators pay taxes for third-party companies? They will not do that. Nowhere in the world is this being done. In Australia, they wanted to introduce a similar system, but so far this has not happened, ”said Alexander Ivanov, head of the National Association of Distance Trading (NADT).