Tomorrow, the Committee on Economy will discuss the proposal to amend the Law on Value Added Tax, which provides for the reduction of the threshold value for commercial postal items for which customs costs and VAT are not paid from the current 150 euros to only 22 euros.
If the committee accepts these changes tomorrow, they could be added to the agenda of the Assembly session, which starts already on Wednesday. If the amendments to the law are adopted that day, they are sent to the President of the State, Filip Vujanović, for his signature, and then to the Official Gazette for publication. The changes will take effect eight days after publication, which, if all procedures were completed quickly, could be in 10 to 15 days from today.
The amendments also provide for an increase in the higher VAT rate from January 1 next year from 19 to 21 percent, which was announced earlier.
In the Government's proposal to amend the law on VAT for shipments from abroad, it is stated that after the word "negligible value" is added "up to 22 euros".
"Vijesti" asked the Ministry of Finance if this means that VAT will now be paid on postal items worth more than 22 euros.
The Ministry replied that "Council Directive 2009/132 on determining the scope of application of Articles 143, item (b) and (c) of Directive 2006/112/EC on exemption from payment of VAT during the final import of certain goods, shipments of insignificant value (up to €22) are exempted, as provided by the new legal solution which is in the parliamentary procedure" .
Precisely because they did not pay duties on shipments of up to 150 euros, more and more citizens bought various goods over the Internet, which were delivered to their address by mail. In 2015, the citizens of Montenegro ordered as many as 277 thousand such shipments.
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