E-COMMERCE CHANGES CUSTOMS

And the day came. We will remember 1 July 2021 as the day on which e-commerce entered, with full rights, into customs law, bringing a new vision of international trade and bringing with it a necessary review of the related VAT legislation, illustrated by ADM precisely the last day available.

From 1 July, all goods shipped to the EU from a third country territory, regardless of their value, must be declared to customs; shipments of goods with an intrinsic value not exceeding € 150,00 may be subject to import methods using the Simplified Declarative Mode Super Reduced Data Set (H7 declaration). VAT can be paid to customs through two different methods of fulfilling the tax obligation: the one-stop shop regime for Imports Import One Stop Shop (IOSS, art. 74-sexies1, D.P.R. n. 633/72, introduced by art. 1, D.Lgs. n. 83/21) and the special system of declaration and payment of VAT upon import, provided by Art. 70.1, D.P.R. n. 633/72 (introduced by Art. 1, Legislative Decree N. 83/21), with the exclusion of products subject to excise duty, such as alcoholic products and tobacco products). Since the choice of the IOSS method involves the payment of the tax (paid by the customer as part of the selling price) in the supplier’s identification state, the simplified import customs declaration will be not subject to tax, in order to avoid double taxation.

The choice, on the contrary, to make use of the special regime to ex art. 70.1, Presidential Decree n. 633/72 presupposes the necessary request to the customs authority to issue authorization for the deferral of payment of the related VAT collected, subject to authorization for the establishment of a comprehensive guarantee and related provision of a specific deposit. The amounts due are aggregated on a monthly basis, in consideration of the shipments actually delivered in the reference month and the payment must be made within the sixteenth day of the month following the aggregation month, in a single solution or through fractional payments corresponding to groups of shipments. On the same day, those using the special regime must submit their monthly declaration of imports made in the reference month. The declaration, generated and pre-filled by the Computer System of the Customs Agency on the basis of shipments actually delivered by the obliged subject in the month of reference, will be made available