RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/VAL/W/35
9 July 1999
(99-2850)
Committee on Customs Valuation Original:  Spanish
LEGISLATION OF BRAZIL1
Questions by Costa Rica
The following communication, submitted orally at the meeting of the Committee on Customs
Valuation on 26 April 1999, has been received from the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica.
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Costa Rica would like to ask Brazil certain questions concerning its customs valuation
legislation in the light of the problem it has had over the past year with the detention by the customsauthorities of Brazil of shipments of components from Costa Rica on the grounds that Costa Rica is a
tax haven which does not exercise control over valuation declarations.
Article 2 of Decree No. 2498 stipulates that the control of customs valuation shall be carried
out selectively, as does Normative Instruction N o. 16 of 16 February 1998 which supplements the said
Decree. We would like to know the criteria that the Customs Administration of Brazil has applied or
applies to the selection process mentioned in its legislation, and specifically, whether one of these
criteria is the classification of a country as a tax haven.
We would also ask Brazil to indicate:- The legal grounds for the detention of goods by its customs officials;
- the criteria applied in classifying a country as a tax haven;
- whether all of the countries classified as tax havens are subject to the same process of
detention applied to Costa Rica.
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1 G/VAL/N/1/BRA/2