Customs expertise

Plan:
1. The essence, purposes, object, subject and tasks of customs expertise
2. Rules for determining the customs expertise
3. The main types of customs expertise
4. Rules of organization and implementation of customs expertise

If necessary, the Customs Code provides for customs examination of goods crossing the customs
border for customs purposes.
As it is known, expertise is a special type of scientific-practical research carried out by an expert
in order to obtain a real, qualified, objective and independent opinion, which is necessary for making
informed decisions on controversial issues and problems arising in certain areas of human activity.
Customs examination is a special scientific-practical research carried out by an expert in order to
resolve various issues of customs. These issues include fiscal, control, economic, law enforcement,
statistical and defense issues, which require various types of expertise.
Customs examination can be referred to a special class of examination, as it has its own
characteristics, objects and methods.
The objectives of the customs examination are defined in the Customs Code. These objectives
are as follows:
- determination of the composition and technical parameters of goods;
- determination and identification of relevance, classification code of goods in accordance with the
nomenclature of foreign economic activity;
- determination of the country of origin of goods, production norms, production date and quality in
the process of processing;
- checking the dual purpose of goods subject to export control;
-determination of chemical and mineralogical composition of goods;
- identification of environmentally hazardous goods and wastes containing ozone-depleting
substances;
- identification of goods at risk of radiation;
- determination of the customs value of goods;
-Determination of the value of goods in terms of history and art criticism.

Objects of customs examination are materialized sources of information. This includes goods and items
crossing the customs border, samples taken from them, objects of smuggling and violation of customs
rules, various documents accompanying the goods and inspected during customs clearance and customs
control (customs, regulatory, legal, financial, etc.).

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The subject of customs examination may include both general problems of the customs case, as well as
specific facts and circumstances revealed in the course of customs control. The most important of these
are:
- determination of the type, condition and purpose of the object of customs control,
- Classification of goods according to HIF MOST,
- determination of customs value and market price of goods,
- determination of the nature of the goods - whether they are subject to licensed excise tax or dual-
use goods -
- determination of the country of origin of goods,
- determination of product yield norm and identification of raw materials in goods,
- identification of drugs and psychotropic goods,
- Diagnosis of jewelry, antiques and museum exhibits, etc.

In addition, in the course of the case, the expert may be asked issues that arise in the process of
combating smuggling, requiring forensic, economic and commodity expertise.
The following can be distinguished from the tasks set for customs experts:
- tasks aimed at identifying the object, its fragments, and sometimes traces. Here, on the basis of
examples, the position, quality, place of manufacture, etc. of the goods according to the CIF MOST.
includes identification.
- Diagnostic tasks - to reveal the mechanism, methods, sequence of events and processes, cause-
and-effect relationships. This includes the output rate of the processed product, the source of raw
materials, etc. technological expertise carried out for the purpose of identification.
- expert prevention - detection of cases creating conditions for crimes and other offenses in the field
of customs and development of measures to eliminate them. These include the creation and investigation
of counterfeit goods, as well as the forecasting of the emergence of criminally dangerous goods in the
customs tariff.
Customs examination shall be appointed during the customs control over goods and their customs
clearance, as well as when making mandatory decisions on the classification of goods, as well as in cases
where special knowledge is required to determine what is specified in the Customs Code. The
appointment of a customs examination shall be carried out in accordance with the requirements of the
criminal procedure and customs legislation, as well as the legislation on administrative offenses.
When complex expert examinations are required, a commission examination shall be carried out on
the basis of the decision of the head of the customs laboratory, entrusted to several experts of the same
qualification. Comprehensive examination is carried out when it is possible to achieve the goals of
customs examination by conducting only a few researches on the basis of different knowledge or science
fields or a system of different methods within one field of knowledge.

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 The rules for determining the customs examination are as follows:
- a customs official, who is in charge of the violation of customs rules, or who is in charge of these
cases, as well as investigating the fact of smuggling, if it deems it necessary to conduct a customs
examination. The decision shall specify the purpose of the expert examination, the questions to be
answered by the expert, and the materials submitted to the expert for the expert examination.

The decision of the customs authority to carry out customs examination shall be drawn up in two
forms - an instruction to conduct an expert examination and a decision to appoint an expert examination.
The instruction on carrying out examination shall be drawn up before the case on violation of
customs rules is filed, if it is necessary to carry out examination in the course of customs control or
customs clearance.
The decision to appoint an expert examination shall be made in the course of proceedings on the
case after the case on violation of customs rules has been filed.
During the criminal investigation, a decision is made to appoint an expert, but this decision is made
in a slightly different form.
Customs examination:
- by an official of the customs authority carrying out customs control and customs clearance during
customs control or customs clearance, with the consent of the head or his deputy or the head or his deputy
of the department for combating smuggling and violation of relevant customs regulations;
- with the consent of the head of the customs authority or his deputy, or the head of the department
for combating smuggling and violation of customs regulations, or his deputy during the proceedings on
violations of the customs legislation, and during the consideration of these cases. appointed by a customs
official.
- The order or decision on the appointment of a customs examination shall specify the
following:
- - place and date of drawing up of the order or decision, name and address of the customs
authority appointing the expert examination, number of the case or criminal case on
Violation of the Customs Legislation on which the expertise is appointed;
- - position and surname of the person appointing the expertise;
- - name (type) of expertise;
- - grounds for appointment of expertise;
- - name of the expert institution where the expert examination will be conducted, name,
surname, patronymic, position and specialty of the specialist if the expert examination is
carried out outside the expert institution, including by an official of the customs authority
who is not an official expert institution of the State Customs Committee;
- - questions to the expert;

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 - - materials submitted to the expert (objects of expert research - samples together with
accompanying documents, Customs Cargo Declarations, other documents containing
information on the subject of examination);
- warning of the expert's responsibility for knowingly giving a false opinion,
- in case of additional or repeated examination - the final opinion of previous examinations (or
information of the previous expert on impossibility to give an opinion), all appendices, as well as
materials related to the subject of examination received after the first examination.
Probes and samples submitted for examination, as well as material evidence shall be sent together
with the sampling protocol. These probes and samples shall be properly packed and sealed.
Taking samples and specimens for examination, as well as material evidence shall be carried out in
accordance with the requirements of customs and criminal procedure legislation.
Types of customs examination related to the examination of goods and items include:
- identification examination,
- material science examination,
- classification examination,
- commodity examination,
- assessment expertise,
- chemical examination,
- certification examination,
- mineralogical examination.
In some cases, this includes technological and expertise related to the determination of the country
of origin of goods, which does not involve the study of specific goods.
It should be noted that the types of customs examinations differ depending on the content of the
question posed to the expert. However, in some cases it may be necessary to answer questions that are the
subject of other types of examinations. It is necessary to solve the problems, which also requires a
material science or chemical examination.
Now let's take a brief look at the different types of expertise.
Identification examination.
Identification is the determination of the identity between two objects. In this sense, the
identification of an unknown good is the identification of this good with any known good.
During the identification examination, the expert is asked to determine which goods are the
object of examination. In some cases, among the goods crossing the customs border, in addition to
the known goods, there are also goods whose appearance or appearance cannot be determined -
raw materials and semi-finished products, the composition or purpose of which can be determined
only by examination.
It is possible to identify them by specifying the characteristics of the goods at different levels.
In this case, the description of the goods is gradually refined to a higher level of detail.

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 As a rule, the degree of detail during identification depends on the purpose. For example, in the
identification for the purpose of valuing goods, the degree of detail is higher than in the identification for
the purpose of classification, and more indicators are used.
Technological expertise.
This type of examination is applied during the placement of goods under the customs
procedure for processing at home or abroad, during the issuance of a license for such processing, as
well as in the course of processing.
The list of goods that can be placed under this customs procedure is determined by law.
The purpose of this examination is to identify the imported or exported goods in processed
products, in other words, to prove that the processed products are derived from these goods. In
some cases, the rate of consumption of processed products or the rate of consumption of raw
materials in the processing process is determined.
As with any technological process, the material balance of processing is calculated as follows:
X=M+T+İ
Where X is the amount of raw material,
M - product,
T - waste,
And I is the loss of production.
For the calculation to be carried out, all components of the material balance must be expressed in
the same unit of measurement.
Classification examination.
This type of examination is one of the most complex and responsible types of examination.
Commodity Classification The Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity developed
on the basis of the "Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System" (HS) applies.
HS The classification of goods is carried out at five levels:
- The first level is the sections where the goods are grouped by areas. For example, live animals
and livestock products in group I, food industry products in group IV, chemical industry products in
group VI, etc. collected.
- The second level - groups of goods. Here, the goods are grouped according to the materials from
which they are made, the function they perform, and the level of processing.
- The third level - the position of the goods - at this level the goods are detailed according to more
specific features,
- The next two levels are used to detail goods on one and two hyphenated subheadings.
The main difficulty in classifying goods is that the classification can be based on various criteria.
For example, a steel chair can be included in group 7326 as a steel product, or in group 9401 as a piece of
furniture for its function. In this case, notes for sections and groups should be used to determine the
product code. For example, in the above example, the appendix of section XV excludes the inclusion of

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furniture in this section, and the appendix of group 73 excludes the inclusion of furniture in this group.
Therefore, based on these notes, the steel chair should belong to group 9401.
In addition to these notes, rules of interpretation have been established to ensure unambiguousness
in the classification of goods, which are used in some cases, especially in the classification of goods that
can be classified according to various characteristics, as well as multifunctional goods..
Commodity examination.
This examination is carried out to determine the condition, purpose, most important
consumer characteristics of the goods, whether they are damaged, brand and other characteristics.
These issues are usually resolved during the use or sale of goods for their intended purpose. As a
rule, the free market price is set at the level of wholesale prices for goods for customs purposes.
The free market price is determined in the following main cases:
- in case of violation of customs rules. It is necessary to determine the gravity of the offense and
use the price as a basis for the subsequent calculation of the fine for the offense;
- during the sale of state-owned goods;
- to calculate the amount of VAT to be refunded to the exporter during the export of goods.
Certification examination is carried out to determine whether the goods meet the quality specified
in the quality certificate.
Chemical and mineralogical examinations are also carried out using appropriate methods to address
the above issues.
The methods used in these types of examinations depend on the nature of the object of
examination.
According to the objects of customs examination:
- examination of chemical materials,
- examination of paper and textile products,
- examination of plant products,
- examination of animal products,
- examination of metals,
- Examination of jewelry, etc.
The following physical and chemical methods are used to carry out these examinations:
- chromatography,
- mass spectral analysis,
- X-ray fluorographic analysis,
- Determination by scanning electron microscope,
- thermal analysis,
- infrared spectroscopy, etc.
The rights and responsibilities of the expert conducting the customs examination are reflected in
the Customs Code.
According to the Code, an expert has the following rights:

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 - to get acquainted with the materials and documents related to the research object;
- to request additional materials and documents necessary for customs examination;
- to ask questions to customs officials, declarants, other persons authorized for goods and their
representatives in order to clarify the information related to the object of research;
- in addition to the questions asked, to indicate in his / her opinion other cases related to the object
of research and considered important for the work;
- to refuse to answer questions that do not fall within their competence;
- to refuse to conduct a customs examination if it is not possible to give an opinion on the basis of
the submitted materials and documents;
- to participate in the implementation of customs control with the permission of the customs
authorities.
The duties of the expert are as follows:
- to advise persons on customs examination;
- to carry out research of probes and samples taken from the goods submitted for customs
examination and to submit an opinion with a full, comprehensive and impartial assessment of its results;
- if it is not possible to give an opinion on the basis of the submitted materials and documents, to
provide written information to the customs authority that appointed the customs examination, or to the
person who applied in this regard, indicating the reasons;
- not to disseminate information on the results obtained from the customs authorities and other
persons, as well as the results obtained for the customs examination.
Based on the research conducted and taking into account their results, the expert gives a written
opinion on his own behalf. The expert's opinion shall state the purpose, time, place, object of research, by
whom and on what basis the research was conducted, the questions asked to the expert, the list of
materials and documents submitted to the expert, the content, results and assessment of the research,
indicating the applied methods. answers should be reflected. In case of disagreement between the experts
during the commission examination, each expert has the right to submit a separate opinion. During the
complex examination, each expert shall sign the part of the opinion that belongs to him.
The expert opinion consists of three parts.
The first part of the opinion is called the introductory part and includes information on the name,
number, additional, repeated, commission or complex examination, name of the body appointing the
examination, information about the expert - position, name, surname, patronymic, education, general and
expert specialty. , scientific degree, dates of submission of materials to the examination and signing of the
opinion, grounds for the examination (decision, assignment), etc. information such as
During the re-examination or additional examination, the introductory part also provides
information on previous examinations.
The second part of the opinion describes the research conducted and its results, as well as a
scientific explanation of the findings.

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 If the expert does not fully answer the questions or additional questions arise about the object of research,
additional expertise is assigned to that expert or another expert.
In cases when the expert's opinion is not substantiated or the customs authorities have doubts about
its accuracy, or on the basis of a complaint of the declarant or other persons authorized with respect to the
goods, re-customs examination shall be appointed by another expert.
The third part of the opinion reflects the conclusions of the expert. Here, the questions asked in the
introductory part are answered in the same order. Each question must be answered on the merits, or it
must be indicated that the solution of the problem is impossible for one reason or another.
The opinion shall be signed by the expert and sealed with the seal of the expert institution.

Role of Customs Laboratories

The Customs laboratories provide the scientific expertise needed to enforce customs regulations on
Customs sphere.

Their main tasks include:

 Chemical analyses to determine the tariff classification and duties of goods

 Control of dangerous substances (e.g. pesticides, pollutants, narcotics, illegal medicines, etc.)
 Determining the authenticity of products and tracking counterfeit
 Providing overall scientific expertise to all customs departments

As such, Customs Laboratories play an essential role in

 the fight against illegal trafficking (e.g. drugs, or contraband)

 combating fraud
 protecting consumers’ and their health
 safeguarding the environment
 helping the fight against terrorism
 ensuring border integrity