a) Administration of customs duty

The assessment, record-keeping, collection and enforcement of customs duty is governed mainly by the Community Customs Code, Act No. 185/2004, on the Customs Administration of the Czech Republic, as amended, and Act No. 337/1992, on the administration of taxes and fees, as amended (act on administration of taxes). Act No. 6/1993, on the Czech National Bank, as amended, requires customs offices to establish state budget accounts for storing customs duty and taxes on imports. Act No. 218/2000, on the budget rules and amending certain related acts, as amended, requires the customs authorities to transfer customs duty and taxes collected in the current year to state budget accounts. Act No. 323/2002, on the composition of the budget, as amended, obliges the customs administration to keep records of customs duty and tax structured according to budget items.

- Principal activities involved in the administration of customs duty:

· performing customs supervision and customs control on imported, exported and transit goods;

· deciding on the assignment of customs-approved designation of goods, on the securing of customs debt, on the conditions of temporary warehousing of goods and on temporary warehouses, on the destruction or devaluation of goods, on permission to use simplified procedure in customs proceedings, on corrections to and annulment of the validity of customs declarations, on the conditions of operating a free zone or free warehouse, on the securing of lien in the context of customs lien law etc.;

· administration of customs duty, and administration of tax in the scope and manner set out by the legislation on the administration of taxes;

· permitting the use of a regime with economic impact, the operation of a customs warehouse;

· deciding on the determination of customs value, issuing certificates of the origin of goods and checking the origin of goods, including after a certificate has been issued;

· checking documents necessary for the import, export or transit of goods issued according to special legal regulations, checking compliance with trade-policy measures of the state and the Community, prohibitions and restrictions in the import, export and transit of goods, and checking whether other customs-related obligations laid down by the law are complied with;

· proceedings on breach of customs regulations, deciding on the seizing of goods that are important for proceedings on breach of customs regulations;

· collecting and enforcing fines imposed by the customs authorities and the prescribed costs of proceedings that were not paid within the time limit;

· performing checks of customs declarations after the release of goods;

· selling warehoused, secured, forfeited and seized goods, selling goods covered by customs lien;

· tracking down goods that were unlawfully imported or exported or removed from customs supervision and identifying persons who removed the goods from customs supervision or participated in this or acquired the goods.

- Competence regarding the collection, recording and enforcing of import duty

· The competences regarding the collecting, recording and enforcement of duty on imports are defined by Council regulation (EEC) 2913/92 of 12.10.1992, which implements Council regulation (EEC) 2913/92, establishing the Community Customs Code, as amended (the “Code”), and by Act No. 13/1993, the customs act, as amended (the “customs act”).

b) Administration of excise duties pursuant to Act No. 353/2003, on excise duties, Act No. 61/1997, on spirits, Act No. 321/2004, on winegrowing and viticulture, the act on administration of excise duties and the EU regulations.

c) Obligatory labelling of spirits – the obligation to mark consumer packs of spirits with a control strip was introduced in the Czech Republic by Act No. 676/2004, on the obligatory labelling of spirits and amending Act No. 586/1992, on income tax, as amended. This competence includes checking the labelling on consumer packs of spirits, the comprehensive system of ordering, distributing, issuing and returning control strips, including the related financial operations.

d) Divided administration – the competence to perform divided administration is laid down in the Act on the Customs Administration of the Czech Republic. The customs administration sees to “the collection and enforcement of financial performance which arose without the issuance of an administrative act by law or was not imposed by other administrative offices in proceedings under the administrative procedural rules and which are a revenue of the state budget, state funds or the budgets of territorial self-governing units”. When Section 106 of Act No. 500/2004, the administrative procedural rules, took effect, the customs administration (in connection with the transfer of the competence to exercise divided administration) was assigned the position of “general administrator of tax”, which enforces obligations resulting from administrative decisions at the request of other entities.

e) Issuing confirmations of the non-existence of debts based on the provisions of special acts.

f) Proceedings on misdemeanours in the field of its competence pursuant to Act No. 20/1990, on misdemeanours.

g) Customs supervision of goods – within the framework of the single customs territory of the European Union they collect duty and check the implementation of the Community’s common agricultural policy, veterinary, phytosanitary and other regulations governing prohibitions and restrictions in the import, export and transit of goods and upon the placing of goods on the market.

h) Control powers in the field of road transport (weighing lorries, checking road-use fees, i.e. motorway coupons, checking compliance with the conditions for transporting hazardous loads, expert supervision of the work of the crews of vehicles in international road freight transport and in matters of the international transport of persons, checking the charging of road tolls).

i) Checking disposal of waste, packaging material, supervision of the safety of imported food products, consumer protection etc.

j) Checking protection of intellectual property rights (Act No. 191/1999, on measures concerning the import, export and re-export of goods violating certain intellectual property rights; Act No. 634/1992, on consumer protection; Council regulation (EC) 1383/2003 of 22 July 2003, concerning customs action against goods suspecting of infringing certain intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against goods found to have infringed such rights; Commission regulation (EC) 1891/2004 of 21 October 2004 laying down provisions for the implementation of Council regulation (EC) 1383/2003 concerning customs action against goods suspecting of infringing certain intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against goods found to have infringed such rights;

k) Powers under the Integrated Rescue System of the State – as an entity that cooperates upon request with other security and rescue corps in extraordinary and crisis situations;

l) Powers in the field of the fight against international terrorism and protection of the Community’s single market (e.g. Act No. 18/1997, on the peaceful use of nuclear energy and ionising radiation (the atomic act), Act No. 281/2002, regulating the prohibition of bacteriological, biological and toxin weapons, Act No. 19/1997, regulating the prohibition of chemical weapons, control of exports of dual-use goods and technologies, control regarding the Earth’s ozone layer etc;).

m) Powers with regard to rough diamonds – (Act No. 440/2003, on the use of rough diamonds, the conditions for their import, export and transit, e.g. checking and confirming of the authenticity of certificates in the case of imports, issuing Community certificates for exports, physically inspecting the contents of consignments of rough diamonds, including specifying their physical and chemical properties, as well as penalty powers).

n) Powers related to the management of property which were forfeited to the state in connection with violation of customs regulations or on the basis of these regulations and with transport vehicles that were forfeited or seized in connection with violation of the legal regulations on the administration of excise duties.

o) Control work pursuant to Act No. 254/2004, on restricting payments in cash.

p) Control of the legal employment of foreign nationals, i.e. checking whether a foreign national is working for a legal or natural person under an employment relation or other contract and whether the foreign national is doing this work in accordance with the issued employment permit (Act No. 435/2004, on employment).

q) Ecological taxes. In accordance with the conditions of the Czech Republic’s membership of the European Union the Czech Republic became obliged, starting in 1 January 2008, to introduce a tax on electricity, natural gas and fossil fuels. This obligation was incorporated into Act No. 261/2007, on the stabilisation of public budgets.

r) Biofuels. Following the entry into force of Act No. 180/2007, amending Act No. 86/2002, on protection of the atmosphere and amending certain acts (the act on excise duties, the act on spirits), there is an obligation to introduce a minimum quantity of biofuels in motor petrols and motor diesel sold for transport purposes.