Ukraine wants to tax goods purchased on foreign marketplaces

16 January 09:42

Business representatives have launched an initiative to tax the import of parcels. This was announced by Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation, and Customs Policy, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.

According to him, the texts of the drafts on amending the Customs and Tax Codes were fully developed by business associations. And the MP has already submitted the relevant bills to the parliament for registration.

In his post on Telegram, Danylo Hetmantsev mentioned seven business associations that have called for the adoption of the relevant changes, and even provided the texts of their appeals to confirm this.

Why business representatives propose to tax parcels

“The Ukrainian e-commerce market is facing serious competitive distortions caused by unequal business conditions. International online marketplaces, such as AliExpress, Temu, Joom and others, including marketplaces that actually have representative offices in the EU, sell goods to buyers in Ukraine at dumping prices that do not include VAT. This puts Ukrainian producers, legal importers and official retailers of all formats in a non-competitive position compared to global players,” the Association of Retailers of Ukraine emphasizes.

The Association of Information Technology Enterprises of Ukraine draws attention to the fact that almost all online commerce is in the shadows and most international shipments are used for illegal commercial activities. In addition, there are risks for Ukrainian consumers, as platforms such as AliExpress are usually not subject to Ukrainian law, which makes it difficult to protect the rights of buyers, return goods of inadequate quality or resolve disputes.

Experts of the Ukrainian Business Council, which includes 121 business associations from various sectors of the economy, emphasize that the current situation with tax avoidance leads to losses for the state budget in the range of UAH 8-9 billion per year, according to calculations based on 2024 data, and creates unequal conditions between national and international e-commerce operators, and domestic and foreign manufacturers.

What changes are proposed to be considered by MPs?

According to Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, the draft laws propose to determine that

– citizens can receive goods worth up to EUR 45 without VAT, provided that such goods are sent to their address by individuals without any payment and without commercial purpose;

– goods purchased by citizens on marketplaces or other similar platforms are subject to VAT regardless of their value. At the same time, import duties will be levied on such goods only if their value exceeds EUR 150.

In order to facilitate VAT administration and speed up the clearance of parcels at customs, it is proposed to

– similar to the IOSS mechanism available in EU countries, to introduce the possibility of paying VAT directly by the supplier of goods or by the marketplace or other similar platform through which such goods were supplied;

– introduce a new customs declaration for low-value goods with a data set similar to the H7 customs declaration used in EU countries. At the same time, the current forms of documents for declaring parcels will continue to be used.

The payment of VAT by the supplier of the goods or the marketplace will eliminate the need for additional customs payments by the buyer during customs clearance and will help speed up customs procedures.

Danylo Hetmantsev invited his fellow MPs to support the initiative of business representatives.

Василевич Сергій
Editor