Annotation

The article examines the legal structure of the customs duty as a triadic structure: 1) “duty is a tax” (criteria: legality, obligation, gratuitousness and fiscal); 2) “duty is an indirect tax” (criterion: succession or transfer of fiscal responsibility from importer to consumer); 3) “duty is a cross-border tax” (criterion: customs border and movement of goods between countries). The article shows that it is the integrity of the customs duty structure that allows: a) to overcome the legal conflict of “duty — tax” and “duty — not tax”; b) to model scenarios for the transformation of a tax subject into a tax agent due to the transfer of fiscal responsibilities from the importer to the consumer (the actual payer); c) optimize the business structure, including its reorganization, the creation of holding units and controlled foreign companies (CFC) in low-tax jurisdictions.