The Association of Internet Commerce Companies (AKIT) has put forward a new initiative, which involves changes in the current duties on high-value parcels from abroad. It is proposed to replace various tax deductions with a single fee of 15%. How Kommersant, this is a softer option, because initially it was about 20%. Now the proposal is being considered in the Analytical Center under the Government, the Gaidar Institute and the Russian Post. At the same time, market participants that are not members of ACIT, as well as experts, are negatively disposed.
Who will lead the process?
They want to oblige express carriers and Russian Post to control the collection in AKIT, and the initiative itself is positioned as a “leveling playing field” for foreign and domestic companies in the field of e-commerce. The association said that foreign companies do not pay VAT and customs duties, are not required to certify goods, and so on. Simply put, they have less overhead, because these companies make more profit.
The head of AKIT Artem Sokolov confirmed that the letter with the proposal was sent to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak. He also said that the amount of the fee has been reduced to 15%. And the duty-free threshold, according to the head of the association, should be abolished altogether.
Note that at the moment the non-taxable limit has been reduced from €1000 to €500. If this amount is exceeded within a month, the buyer is obliged to pay 30% of the amount in excess of the limit. At the same time, along with the decrease in the "ceiling", the number of cross-border parcels to Russia began to decline, according to Russian Post.
What do the experts think?
Ivan Kurguzov, head of the E-commerce cluster of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, believes that the introduction of the fee will reduce the volume of purchases even more, although it will not cancel them at all. According to him, the delivery of goods from AliExpress brings huge profits to Russian Post. Therefore, serious restrictions should not be expected.
“Another reason: China is a very big friend of Russia. Until the situation changes radically, no law that infringes on the Chinese seller will be adopted, ”the expert believes. However, if restrictions are introduced, it will hit consumers.
“In connection with this [the introduction of restrictions], there is a significant risk of a strong slowdown in the growth rate of online purchases in Russia. This will lead to less loading of the infrastructure and will negatively affect its quality for buyers in the country and abroad, thereby hitting all players in the online commerce market, ”Kurguzov believes.
Fortunately, while there is no talk of adopting new limits and exact dates, so we can hope that it will carry over this time as well. By the way, Mail.ru Group criticized the AKIT initiative.
“The reason for this is that AKIT and its members are trying to take over the market for cheap Chinese goods by applying their 50 percent or more markups, which are standard for “old economy” retailers, which will once again negatively affect consumers.” , — said Vladimir Gabrielyan, vice president and technical director of the group.
Source: 3dnews.ru