In May of last year, a motorist was stopped by inspectors of the Izmail police department. After checking the documents, they passed information to the Odesa customs office that a Ukrainian was driving a car with foreign license plates.
Customs officers, after conducting an inspection, acknowledged the violation and imposed a fine of more than 500 thousand hryvnias on the owner of the "euro plate" car — this is 300% of the amount of unpaid customs duties, in their opinion. The ruling stated that the car, imported into Ukraine by a foreigner under preferential conditions, was used not for its intended purpose, but as a commodity, which contradicts the terms of the provided preferences.
The driver filed a lawsuit demanding that the ruling be declared invalid. He explained that the car was imported by a Polish citizen who gave him the car for temporary use. According to Article 380 of the Customs Code of Ukraine, non-residents have the right to import personal vehicles into the country for a period of up to one year.
The driver also stated that he did not know and was not obliged to know in what regime the car was imported and whether the owner used customs benefits. According to him, he had no intent to violate customs rules, because he is not the owner of the car and is not responsible for compliance with the customs regime.
Judge Svitlana Markarova sided with the plaintiff, noting that customs officers did not provide evidence of a violation of the rules.
The customs office did not appeal the decision of the Malynovskyi District Court, so it came into force. Interestingly, initially the tax authorities demanded to recover more than one million hryvnias.
