Exit tax for cross-border shoppers may raise $840 mln in 6 months
Customs officers and frontier guards are unable to tell how much their services at the border actually cost.
"Some people go through the green channels, others - through the red ones. These are different standards," the Customs Committee tells Euroradio, answering the question whether it is possible to calculate the prime cost of the service.
The day before, the state leader suggested taking a $ 100 fee from a person. Alyaksand Lukashenka even calculated the sum spent on shopping abroad by Belarusians in 2012 - $ 3 billion! However, the customs officers have no idea how much money the Belarusian citizens take out of the country as it is not obligatory to declare the sum which is less than $ 10 thousand.
According to the information provided by the Polish Touristic Organization, Belarusian citizens visited Poland nearly 4 million times. Our Ministry of Sports and Tourism claims that Belarusians visited Lithuania about 1,3 million times.
The figures seem unbelievable! However, according to the data of the Customs Committee, our citizens crossed the border with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and the border in the airport about 8,4 million times! This does not include those who traveled to Russia and Ukraine.
Therefore, it is absolutely possible that Belarusians traveled to Lithuania and Poland 5,3 million times in 2012. If they took $ 3 billion altogether, this makes about $ 570 in average - nearly the average Belarusian salary.
Director of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Economy Pyotr Nikitsenka thinks that the state leader only expressed his opinion in order to make the specialists think about the situation:
"No one suggests any measures to improve the situation. So he tried to find the way out himself. He said this as he knew the situation. People started giving their suggestions. It is good that he says this in order to make the public opinion speak about this as well. Therefore, our attitude to this statement should be like, there is a problem and the question is raised."
On the whole, Pyotr Nikitsenka is convinced that it is necessary to monitor the goods that the people bring into the country, as competition is not a bad thing.
"If they bring the goods that we don't have in Belarus - this is one issue. But if they bring the goods that are better in quality, this will stimulate our manufacturers."
If every Belarusian had paid $100 for leaving the country since this year, the state would have already earned $ 840 million.
Photo: profi-forex.org
