Changes in labelling of goods with unified control marks and means of identification

The Ministry of Taxes and Duties of the Republic of Belarus approved Resolution No. 23 of 07.06.2023 "On Amending Resolution No. 17 of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties of the Republic of Belarus of 3 May 2021" (hereinafter - Resolution No. 23), which amends Resolution  No. 17 concerning five areas of the sphere of labelling of goods with electronic passports and means of identification:

composition of mandatory information to be entered into the Bank of Electronic Passports of Goods;

the composition of information to be entered into the GIS "Electronic Mark" when goods are imported into the Republic of Belarus within the framework of cross-border trade;

list of authorised warehouses;

requirements for authorised warehouses and their owners;

the procedure for forming a means of identification of transport packaging.

1. Composition of mandatory information to be entered into the Bank of Electronic Passports of Goods

In order to obtain a GTIN, business entities must enter mandatory information into the Bank of Electronic Passports of Goods (clause 9 of the Regulation on Labelling of Goods with Means of Identification).

Mandatory information is the information on the varieties of goods of the same name subject to labelling by means of identification means, entered into the Bank of Electronic Passports of Goods and transmitted to the labelling system (clause 12 of Annex 3 to Decree No. 243).

From the name of item 1 of the composition of mandatory information (Annex 1 to Decree No. 17) is excluded the specification of economic entities engaged in trade in goods returned to sellers by buyers. Previously, article 1 of Annex 1 to Resolution No. 17 used to apply only to economic entities trading in goods purchased in retail trade returned to sellers by buyers. However, in practice, goods may also be returned in wholesale trade, which is not prohibited by paragraphs 3 and 9 of the Instruction on the order of storage, transportation and sale of goods subject to marking with unified control signs or means of identification. In this regard, and clarified the name of paragraph 1 of Annex 1 to Decree No. 17 (subparagraph 1.2 of Decree No. 23).

GCP - global prefix of the enterprise in the GS1 system - is excluded from the information on dairy products, tyres, light industry goods and footwear. The definition of GCP is also excluded from item 4 of Decision No. 17 (subitem 1.1 of Decision No. 23).

Two attributes "Type of goods" and "Functional name of the unit of goods (products)" have been merged in the dairy products information. Now the second attribute is an addition to the first, rather than acting as an independent attribute.

The composition of information on dairy products, tyres and light industrial goods has been supplemented with two new attributes:

country of registration of the producer (code of the country of registration of the producer);

taxpayer identifier of the producer (applied in cases when the country of registration of the economic entity that produced the goods is one of the EAEU member states. Taxpayer identifiers: the Republic of Armenia - UNN, the Republic of Belarus - UNP, the Republic of Kazakhstan - INN or BIN, the Kyrgyz Republic - INN, the Russian Federation - INN) (subparagraph 1.2 of Decision No. 23).

In connection with the addition of new attributes to the information on certain goods, economic entities engaged in the circulation of such goods should check their descriptions of goods in the Bank of electronic passports of goods and, if necessary, make appropriate changes. Non-compliance of the composition of information contained in the labelling system with the requirements of the legislation is the basis for recognising goods as unlabelled.

2. Composition of information to be entered into the GIS "Electronic Mark" when importing goods into the Republic of Belarus within the framework of cross-border trade.

Decisions of the EEC Council on the labelling of goods give the EEU member states the right to independently determine the date of introduction of their labelling on their territory. In practice, when the EEC Council takes a decision on the labelling of a particular group of goods, one or two EEU member states introduce labelling on their territory. As a rule, national operators of EEU member states that have not introduced labelling of goods are not interested in concluding an inter-operator agreement.

In order to import dairy products, shoes, tyres and certain light industry goods into Belarus from an EEU member state that has not introduced labelling and with which there is no information interaction (no inter-operator agreement), a Belarusian business entity must mark them with Belarusian means of identification. At the same time, labelling may be carried out by both protected and unprotected means of identification.

In order to enable economic entities to reflect in the labelling system the method of labelling (unprotected, use of a protection mark or protected material carrier), subpara. 1.4.1 article 1.1 of Annex 2 to Decision No. 17 (with the exception of fur garments) was supplemented accordingly (paragraph 3, subparagraph 1.3 of Decision No. 23).

Taking into account that the release of goods under a goods declaration for goods imported into the customs territory of the EEU may be carried out by customs authorities not only of the Republic of Belarus but also of other EEU member states, paragraph 3 of Annex 2 to Decision No. 17 specifies the customs authority for the item "registration number of the goods declaration and the date of release of goods under it (for goods imported into the customs territory of the EEU and released by the customs authority of the Republic of Belarus)". This clarification allows the indication of the customs authority not only of the Republic of Belarus, but also of any other EEU member state (paragraph 8, subparagraph 1.3 of Decision No. 23).

3. List of authorised warehouses

The list of authorised warehouses defined in Annex 3 to Decision No. 17 has been adjusted:

- five authorised warehouses were excluded;

- addresses of twelve authorised warehouses belonging to RUE "Beltamozhservice" were specified;

- the house number of the authorised warehouse belonging to Caravan Camberley LLC was specified (sub-paragraph 1.4 of Resolution No. 23).

4. Requirements for authorised warehouses and their owners

The requirements for authorised warehouses and their owners (Annex 4 to Resolution No. 17) have been stricter. The new requirements shall come into force on 18.02.2024 (subparagraph 1.5, paragraph 2, item 2 of Decision No. 23).

The requirements for an authorised warehouse are supplemented by the obligation to locate an authorised warehouse in a building, structure or a separate part thereof, which belongs to the owner by right of ownership, economic management or operational management. Thus, premises under lease cannot be included in the list of authorised warehouses (paragraph 2, subparagraph 1.5, subparagraph 1.5 of Resolution No. 23).

The following additions have been made to the requirements for the owner of an authorised warehouse (paragraphs 3 - 11 of subparagraph 1.5 of Resolution No. 23):

- non-assignment of the economic entity to inactive payers. In other words, the business entity must be engaged in entrepreneurial activity for twelve consecutive months;

- absence of arrears of taxes, fees (duties), other mandatory payments to the republican and local budgets, control over the correctness of calculation, timeliness and completeness of payment of which is entrusted to the tax authorities, penalties as of the 1st day of the month following the reporting month. There was a similar requirement before. Now it is set out in a new, more extended version;

- not brought to administrative responsibility in the field of entrepreneurial activity and (or) against the procedure of taxation. At that, persons released from administrative responsibility on the grounds provided for by CAO, as well as persons who are considered not to have been subjected to administrative penalty for an administrative offence committed in accordance with article 4.9 of CAO are considered not brought to administrative responsibility;

- joining an agreement on cooperation and interaction in the area of control over the turnover of goods subject to labelling with UCMs or means of identification (hereinafter referred to as the agreement). The agreement is planned to be concluded between the Ministry of Taxes and the owner of an authorised warehouse. At present, the form and procedure for concluding an agreement to the owners are not available in the public domain. You should follow the news on the official website of the Ministry of Taxes and Levies: nalog.gov.by.

5. Procedure of formation of the means of identification of transport packaging

The basic technological organizational model of the system of marking goods with means of identification in the EAEU, approved by the decision of the EEC Council dated 05.03.2021 N 19, and the decisions of the EEC Council on marking goods with means of identification (dated 08.08.2019 N 72, dated 18.11.2019 N 127 — 130, dated 23.12.2020 N 129, от 29.10.2021 N 113, dated 23.09.2022 N152) do not contain restrictions on the structure and format of the means of identification of transport packaging.

Currently Clause 9 of the Instructions on the Procedure of Labelling of Goods contains a restriction in terms of the format of presentation of the means of identification of the transport package in the form of the SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code).

The new wording of item 9 of the Instructions on the Procedure of Labelling of Goods provides for the possibility of forming the means of identification of transport packaging in accordance with international standards GS1 (subparagraph 1.6 of Decision No. 23).

All provisions of Decree N 23, except for the requirements for authorised warehouses and their owners, come into force from 18.08.2023 (clause 2 of Decree N 23).

Tatiana Kushner, economist

Source: Ilex.