Translated material
Villainess with an old sticker
Deputies are ready to temporarily return the previous excise tax stamps on alcohol
The alcohol series brings new intrigues every day. At the departmental level, working groups of various compositions meet every day; market participants never tire of proving that panic in the market and “orphan” bottles only benefit shadow traders. And the deputies who went on summer vacation are ready to rewrite the legislation. Moreover, in fact, return the market to its “pre-reform” state.Yesterday, representatives of the United Russia party did not rule out that bottles with old brands would be put into circulation again for a very limited period. And if the situation requires it, they will prepare amendments to the law.
The alcohol issue was discussed yesterday at a meeting of the Presidium of the General Council of United Russia. A proposal was made about the possible parallel circulation of the old and new excise stamps for a certain limited period of time - for example, a year. This will require amendments to the law on state regulation of the production and circulation of alcohol, but United Russia does not rule out that they will prepare appropriate amendments in the very near future. To bring them to the first meeting of the chamber after the holidays on September 7. If the crisis in the alcohol industry is not resolved by August 2, when the next meeting of the presidium takes place, United Russia intends to use the “political resource” and return the old excise stamps.
According to the coordinator of United Russia for interaction with the business community, Vladimir Gruzdev, imported alcoholic products will appear in stores no earlier than 50-60 days after the start of operation of the Unified State Automated Information System for Accounting for Alcohol, Spirits and Alcohol-Containing Products (USAIS). And the longer the downtime, the higher the likelihood of prices rising, especially if enterprises do not achieve compensation for losses from insurance companies or through the courts. There are 2.5 thousand users registered in the system, and if each of them on average issues about 200 invoices per day, EGAIS will have to process about 500 thousand documents every day. “It is very doubtful that the system is in principle capable of coping with such a volume of information,” the deputy fears.
It is also possible that the Duma will decide on a parliamentary investigation into the causes of the crisis, but this will in no way solve the current problems with the functioning of the Unified State Automated Information System. There is still no government resolution regulating the work of the Unified State Automated Information System and the actions of market participants. Even after the fact that every day in each of those departments that were instructed by the Prime Minister last week to deal with the situation (the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Agriculture, the FSB and the Federal Customs Service were mentioned in the government’s letters), meetings are held, and a meeting is scheduled for today “ defendants" in this case with Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov. At the same time, it was the government that at one time insisted on the speedy introduction of the Unified State Automated Information System from July 1, 2006, while nothing similar to “state acceptance” of the system was carried out.
According to market participants, the longer the Unified State Automated Information System does not work, the more alcohol will go into illegal circulation. According to estimates by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Wine World holding, Petr Kanygin, up to 30 million units of products may end up in the shadow sector due to the fact that some importers simply left the market after July 1, some went bankrupt, becoming risky borrowers for banks that received loans They return unsold wine. Consignments of Georgian and Moldovan wine, despite the insistence of Rospotrebnadzor, were never destroyed, and illegal excise stamps that appeared during a period of shortage of new brands and an excess of “orphan bottles” completed the job.
As a result, as the entrepreneur predicts, the illegal market will flourish, and in legal circulation, even after the Unified State Automated Information System becomes fully operational, a rise in the price of imported alcohol cannot be avoided. In a market deprived of competition, price fixing and corporate arrangements will come.