Problems of Digital Transformation of Customs Services on Classification of Goods

The paper considers topical issues of digital transformation of the public sector of the Russian Federation. The study analyzes the practice of providing services by customs authorities. The machinery and equipment as the most problematic goods for international trade were chosen as the object of the study. The research is comprehensive and has been carried out using statistical data and legal sources. In the course of the study, the author found that the Federal Customs Service of Russia has implemented decisive measures to transition to the provision of public services and implementation of public functions electronically over the past decades. The need to automate customs operations sets the task to ensure automatic processing of the information contained in the submitted documents. The author revealed that the greatest difficulty is the semantic analysis of the information contained in the customs documents. The presented analysis of the practice of providing services by the customs authorities of the Russian Federation allowed the author to determine the identification and classification of goods as the most difficult for informatization. The author identifies factors limiting the possibility of digitalization of decision-making on classification due to a systematic approach in the application of the commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity, which establishes the need to apply the general rules of interpretation. A comparative analysis made it possible to identify the limiting factor of the legal interpretation of the 'shipment' concept. The data presented in the study show that it is not possible to provide services for the classification of goods for customs purposes entirely through the use of information technologies. The actual level of digitization of customs services in this area is now limited to auxiliary functions only. The inability to digitalize the decision-making on the classification of machinery and equipment is the main limitation of digital transformation of customs services at the present stage.