The new regulation, published Monday in an official government newspaper, sets a predetermined excise tax in European currency units for each product. At present, the tax is based on the price of a contract presented at the border.
"Many importers tend to present unbelievably low-priced contracts in order to pay lower excises," said Mikhail Odinets, head of the spirits department of the Agriculture Ministry. "Imagine a bottle of vodka costing 10 cents, but we had such cases."
The new regulation sets the excise duty for vodka at 3.5 Ecus ($2.90) per liter. The tax is now calculated at 250 percent of the contract price.
Importers will pay 6 ecus per 1,000 cigarettes and cigars, according to the regulation, compared with 100 percent of the contract price now.
The decree, signed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin last week, makes the new excise taxes valid as of Aug. 1, but Vladimir Klimov, spokesman for the State Customs Committee, said his office had issued a regulation that will enforce the new rules from Aug. 15.
Importers said it was hard to say whether the change amounted to a tax increase or decrease. But Dmitry Ryleyev, a sales manager with Moscow Cash & Carry Mozhaisk, a food wholesaler, said an importer has no way of paying a lower excise, unless a customs officer is bribed.
"The easiest way to deceive the state is to get a customs officer bribed," he said.
Klimov said customs officials have six methods of checking whether the price of a contract is real and said he did not understand why the rules have been changed.
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