In focus
In the case, it was being discussed whether the customs infringement of inaccurate declarations foreseen in Article 954, paragraph c) of the Customs Code, charged by customs against the company Pioneer, was admissible, considering that, in a scheme of successive sales between related companies, at the time of the import, instead of declaring the actual price of the last sale, Pioneer should have declared the value of the previous sale made between its related companies, since it was lower.
Following the criterion of most of the courts of the Federal Contentious Administrative Chamber, the Supreme Court understood that, in the analysis of the type of infringement of the inaccurate declaration foreseen in Article 954, paragraph c) of the Customs Code, the examination of the discrepancy between the declared price and the amount paid — in the case of imports — is limited to the last sale in the case of successive sales.
In this sense, it held that the fact that the last of the successive sales between related parties had been preceded by a sale at a lower price, or even substantially lower, is not sufficient to shift the burden of proof to the importer. For the Supreme Court, the importer does not have to prove that the declared customs value was the price that actually corresponded to the imported goods. It is customs that must prove that this customs value was not the price that the importer ended up paying abroad.
With this analysis, the court puts a limit on the claims formulated by customs in the last few years in successive sales operations between related parties, both for imports and exports.
It is to be expected that, after this strong ruling, customs will cease with its claims in these matters and that the lower courts (especially the tax court) will order the immediate dismissal of the infringement cases filed against hundreds of importers.
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