The decision to lower the threshold for duty-free purchases in foreign online stores for Russians was postponed until 2016, when the EAEU Customs Code enters into force. Until this moment, the current duty-free shopping standards will remain in the ECE member countries.
Since the beginning of 2010, Russia has been subject to customs rules, according to which a duty is levied on the recipient of the parcel if the goods cost more than 1 thousand euros or weigh more than 31 kg. The amount of the duty is calculated as 30% for exceeding the norm by weight or price (but not less than 4 euros for 1 kg). Purchases over this amount should be subject to 30% duty.
At the end of 2013, President Vladimir Putin proposed lowering this threshold, and channeling the budget revenues thus obtained to infrastructure projects in the housing and utilities sector.
During the discussion of the presidential initiative in the government, the Ministry of Finance proposed to reduce the threshold to 150 euros, but the final decision was never made. After some time, the Ministry of Finance again proposed to lower the threshold to 150 euros. However, the Ministry of Industry and Trade began to insist on a different amount - 500 euros, and the Ministry of Economic Development proposed to exclude a number of goods from this rule. Finally, the portal Russian Public Initiative collected over 100 thousand signatures against lowering this threshold, after which the government began to think about the advisability of revising the current norms of duty-free Internet commerce.
At the end of 2014, Vladimir Putin started talking about the fact that "taxation of Internet commerce" should correspond to the level of other member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union - that is, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Otherwise, if the level of taxation is different, "all business will move to these countries." Apparently, then the president did not mean taxation, but just the amount of duty-free purchases. In Kazakhstan, as in Russia, the norm for duty-free purchases in online stores is 1 euros, and in Belarus only 200 euros.
But participants in the online trading market believe that in the current economic conditions, the expediency of lowering norms for duty-free shopping has disappeared due to a decrease in purchases in foreign online stores due to the devaluation of the ruble.
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