Таможеное дело

"Gifts or Benefits. The offering of gifts and / or benefits may be seen as an attempt to influence a decision which an officer is required to take. ..."

The Customs Service has no right to public recognition or trust if its staff break the law habitually. Maintaining an environment that encourages ethical behaviour among all Customs staff must be a high priority for each officer. Customs authorities need to promote a culture which includes such values as honesty, fairness, accountability, professionalism and integrity.

The CCC's Arusha Declaration defines integrity as a science concerning discipline, professional ethics, courtesy, personal integrity and strictness. It is important that Customs officials establish a code of conduct involving rewards and punishments which should lead to self-discipline and that all staff demonstrate an exemplary level of personal ethics to project an image of Customs that is above reproach.            (3000 symbols)

  11.2.1 Are the following words positive (+) or negative (-)?

to accomplish                        illicit                             breaches

to obstruct                             courteous                    diligence

to hinder                                unbiased                       impartiality

to obey                                  corrupt                           bribes

to comply with                     fair                                 accountability

to justify                               improper                      reproach

 11.2.2 Choose the verbs from the box that collocate with the following nouns.

deliver, win, adopt, settle, face, betray, generate, pay, solve, obey, tackle, impose, enforce, shake, produce, inspire, rescind, violate, collect, to be subject to

1)  _____  revenue     2)      _____    law         3) _____   issue

4)  ______ confidence     5) _____ penalty

11.2.3 Make up sentences matching up the two halves:

 

11.2.4 Group the following words and phrases into 3 families:

Revenue                                            fraud                                     regulations

behaviour                                        penalty                                  prohibited drugs

breaches                                          to judge                                to justify

courteous                                         a set of principles                disciplinary action

offences                                           to obey                                  trafficking

framework                                       to comply with                     punishment

     

11.3 Read the text about corruption in the U.S. Customs Service.

Suggest your considerations about combating with corruption in the Customs Service

                                                           Text B

        From  the very beginning of  the U.S.Customs Service existence there have been a lot of problems, corruption being the major one. No one likes to pay taxes and  a good number of citizens try to take the law into their own hands, bending the system in the pursuit of increased profits. The reality is that with a smallnumber of inspectors, thousands of miles of hard-to-protect borders, and unscrupulous entrepreneurs willing to fill almost any demand, the Customs Service has always been something of an underdog. 

        Two  years  after  the War  of  1812  had  begun,  for  example,  the Governor General of Canada wrote the British foreign office in London that "two thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating beef provided by American contractors, drawn principally from the states of New York and Vermont." 

        Although Customs  seized  some  of  the  contraband,  its  task was  obviously impossible. "Like herds of buffaloes they [the smugglers] pressed through the forest, making paths for themselves," a general wrote the American Secretary of War. "Were it not for the supplies, the British force in Canada soon would be suffering from famine, or their government would be subjected to enormous expenses for their maintenance." 

       These inherent conflicts, and the vast profits to be realized from contraband, have meant that the Customs Service has been required to wage an almost continuous battle against corruption. A report from the solicitor of the Treasury Department in the middle of the Civil War concluded that Customs Service clerks in New York with annual salaries of $1,000 began an eight-year tour of duty with nothing and left government with what at the time was "a fortune of $30,000" or more. 

       While the adoption of the income tax in World War One would lessen some of these pressures, the national ban on the sale of liquor during most of the 1920s Prohibition created an economic dynamic in which businessmen and gangsters serving a thirsty nation were all too willing to set aside some of their vast profits to assure that those guarding the borders looked the other way. 

        When the nation's war on drugs picked up steam during the Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, drug organizations from every corner of the world presented a new challenge to the integrity of enforcement officials at all levels of government. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that federal agents in 1998 seized 120 metric tons of cocaine and 1,580 kilograms of heroin. But this is known to be only a small fraction of these two drugs that were smuggled in the country that year. While corruption is only one of many factors explaining the continuing success of the smugglers, historical record is clear: bribery is a continuing concern. 

        In  1998,  for  example,  Congress became sufficiently worried about such problems in the Customs Service that it ordered the Treasury Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to undertake a special study of corruption within the service and the efficacy of service's internal affairs system to combat it. In February 1999, in a little noticed report, the office concluded that while organized networks of corruption had not been uncovered within the Customs Service, that the massive flow of drugs into the U.S. places "Customs and its employees at great risk to corruption." OPR also found serious weaknesses in how the Office of Internal Affairs "sought to detect and combat corruption."  (2900 symbols)

  11.3.1 Give  the  initial forms of  the following words and state what parts of speech they belong to:

 Continuing                  weakness                      maintenance               unscrupulous

existence                     smugglers                      undertake                    uncovered

11.3.2 Give English equivalents of the following words and collocations:

 платить  налоги,  неудачник,  генерал –губернатор,  проложить  тропу, огромные  прибыли,  эффективность,  запрет,  обойти  систему,  голод (истощение), взяточничество, малая часть.

 11.3.3 Say whether the following statements are true or false:

  1) Сorruption has been the major problem for the U.S.Service.

2) Everybody likes to pay taxes.

3) The reality is that the Customs Service has always been something of an undercat. 

4) If it had been not for the supplies, the American force in Canada would have suffered from famine. 

5) The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates

that federal agents in 1998 seized 120 metric tons of cocaine and 1,580 kilograms of heroin.

 

Unit 12 Customs Tariffs and International Trade

  12.1.1 Practice the reading of the following words and guess their meaning:

tariff  barter  record  exchange  preferentially procedure  area

general  duty  result  transit  licence  quota  domestic

12.1.2 Give the initial forms of the following words and state what parts of speech they belong to:

permissible  equipment  completely  valuation  account

protection  arrangement  comparative  differentiate  restrictive

12.1.3 Read the following words and their translation. Try to memorize the vocabulary:

  trace back                                                                     проследить 

   interfere with                                                               вмешиваться

  costly                                                                               дорогой

 permissible                                                                     допустимый

 restrain                                                                            сдерживать; обуздывать; удерживать  

 consequence                                                                 следствие

 impel                                                                              побуждать, принуждать, подталкивать 

 mercantilist                                                                    расчетливый

 dictum                                                                              афоризм, изречение, максима, сентенция

 discourage                                                                       не одобрять; препятствовать, отговаривать

 encourage                                                                        ободрять; поощрять, поддерживать

 revenue tariff                                                                   фискальный тариф, фискальные пошлины

yield                                                                                   приносить урожай, давать плоды; давать

                                                                                            результат, приводить  к чему-л.

 en route                                                                          по пути, по дороге; в пути

quantitative                                                                     количественный

 commodity                                                                      товар

windfall                                                                           неожиданная удача, неожиданный доход  

ad valorem tariffs                                                     тарифы, взимаемые соответственно стоимости товара

trade prefrences                                                  предпочтения ( особые торговые преимущества,

                                                                                   предоставляемые торговым партнерам из                                                                                                   

                                                                                   дружественных стран в целях развития экспорта )

  12.2 Read the text about major types and forms of customs tariffs

                                     Text A   Tariffs

        International trade includes all economic transactions that are made between countries. Accounts of barter of goods or of services among different people can be traced back almost as far as the record of human history. International trade, however, is specifically an exchange between members of different nations. Accounts and explanations of such trade begins only with the rise of the modern nation-state at the close of the European Middle Ages.

       All nations interfere with international transactions to at least some degree. Tariffs may be imposed on imports — in some instances making them so costly as to bar completely the entry of the goods involved. Quotas may limit the permissible volume of imports. State subsidies may be offered to encourage exports. Money-capital exports may be restricted or prohibited. Investments by  foreigners in domestic plants and equipment may be similarly restrained. These interferences may be simply the result of special-interest pleading, because particular groups suffer as a consequence of import competition. Or a government may impose restrictions because it feels impelled to take account of factors that comparative advantage sets aside.

The general pattern of interference follows the old mercantilist dictum of discouraging imports and encouraging exports.  Such interference or trade barriers may include state trading organizations and government procurement practice that may be used preferentially. Customs classification and valuation procedures, health regulations and marking requirements may also have a restrictive effect on trade. Excise taxes may act as a barrier to trade if they are levied at higher rates on imports than on domestic goods.

Different government regulations and practices also act as barriers to trade. For example, a tariff, or duty, which is a tax levied on a commodity when it crosses the boundary of the Customs area. The boundary may be that of a nation or group of nations that have agreed to impose a common tax on goods entering their territory. Protective tariffs  are designed to shield domestic production from foreign competition by raising the price of the imported commodity.  Revenue tariffs  are designed to obtain revenue rather than to restrict imports. Still, protective tariffs, unless they are so high as to keep out imports, yield revenue, and revenue tariffs give some protection to any domestic producer of the duty-bearing goods. A transit duty, or transit tax, is a tax levied on commodities passing through a Customs area en route to another country. Similarly, an export duty, or export tax, is a tax imposed on commodities leaving a Customs area.

Other practices may also act as barriers to trade. Quotas of quantitative restrictions may prohibit the importation of certain commodities or limit the amounts imported. Such quotas are usually administered by requiring importers to have licences to bring in particular commodities. Quotas raise prices just as tariffs do, but, being set in physical terms, their impact on imports is direct, with an absolute ceiling set on supply. Increased prices will not bring more goods in. There is also a difference between tariffs and quotas in their effect on revenues. With tariffs, the government receives the revenue; under quotas, the import licence holders obtain a windfall in the form of the difference between the high domestic price and the low international price of the import.

Tariffs on imports may be applied in several ways. If they are imposed according to the physical quantity of an import, they are called specific tariffs. If they are levied according to the value of the import, they are known as ad valorem tariffs.