| Skopje, 01st July 2010
Acting upon the established irregularities, the Customs Administration of the Republic of Macedonia in June 2010 pressed criminal charges against 2 legal and 2 natural entities, suspected of involvement in two crimes - customs fraud,
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The criminal charges were pressed on grounds of reasonable doubts that the persons involved committed a crime – customs fraud. In the first case, criminal charges were brought against a legal entity from Gostivar and its principal, a Macedonian citizen from Gostivar, because during 2008 by presenting invoices where the goods were wrongly classified in a tariff heading with lower duty rate and by not declaring costs for design and insurance, they evaded an amount estimated to 6,789,762 denars of customs duties and other taxes. By presenting fifty-four customs declarations, the suspects customs cleared raw materials for production of juice, imported from Holland. Due to reasonable doubts of undervaluation, i.e. that the presented invoices indicate wrong price of the goods, the Customs Administration sent the invoices for verification to the Dutch Customs and Tax Administration, who after completing the investigations responded that the original invoices differ with those presented to the Macedonian authorities for import clearance, i.e. the real value of the goods was 202,764.44 USD and also submitted certificates of the ingredients of the goods. On grounds of these documents, the right customs tariff code for the goods was established, which was higher, as well as the VAT and a special import levy. In addition, during the post-clearance audit of the books of the legal entity, the customs inspectors found invoices which refer to costs for design and insurance, and which were not added to the basic value of the goods for calculation of import duties.
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In the other case, criminal charges were filed against a legal entity from Skopje and its principal, a Macedonian citizen from Skopje, because during 2009, bu presenting false invoices, the suspects evaded customs and other duties in total amount of 1,297,224 denars. By presenting three customs declarations, the suspects customs cleared chewing gums, sweets, instant coffee, waffles and chocolates, originating in Turkey. Due to reasonable doubts of undervaluation, i.e. that the presented invoices indicate wrong price of the goods, the Customs Administration sent the invoices for verification to the Customs Services of Turkey and Bulgaria who after completing the investigations responded that the original invoices differ with those presented to the Macedonian authorities for import clearance, i.e. the real value of the goods was 136,108 USD. |