In Ukraine, the annual losses of the state budget from the shadow electronics market are estimated at approximately 20 billion hryvnias, while half of this amount is a consequence of the illegal import of Apple products. About this stated Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev.
“20 billion hryvnias are losses of the state from shadowy, smuggled electronics. 10 billion of them are from illegally imported Apple products. For comparison, the entire business support program is a little over 40 billion. That is, we lose half of this amount due to smuggling.” Hetmantsev explained.
He emphasized that smuggling is a serious criminal offense, and in many cases its organization has features of coordinated criminal activity, in which representatives of customs and law enforcement agencies may be involved.
“Because we understand that without the cover of individual customs officers and law enforcement officers, they would not be able to systematically violate the law. Therefore, only severe punishments should be imposed on the organizers and everyone who participates in such schemes.” Hetmantsev noted.
He also pointed to the need to cancel the current rule, which exempts postal items from abroad with a value of less than €150 from paying VAT.
“For some reason, we support a foreign producer. Our producer, who makes goods, from food to light industry, pays VAT. And the one who does it in conditional China does not pay VAT. From the point of view of state tax policy, this is absolute nonsense, nonsense. We oppress people who create added value here, pay taxes, for the benefit of people we don’t even know.” – stressed Danylo Hetmantsev.
