Antiques are also part of the national heritage

Ukrainians who buy a souvenir or a painting by a famous artist during a trip abroad should be ready to face problems at the state boarder. They will have to fill in a series of documents to import the items that are considered to be cultural works, pay taxes and undergo trying experiences, which require both considerable time and money. Such problems affect not only private individuals, but also public institutions. For example, if the State Service of Control Over Displacement of Cultural Values Across the State Border will bring back certain items, like paintings or books that were taken out of the country many years ago, and those items will be considered to be part of the national heritage, they will have to fill in the necessary documents and pay a 20 percent tax on each. This is a requirement of the Customs Code and the law “On Export, Import, and Restitution of Cultural Values.”

The result is that a part of our cultural heritage has not been returned, and collectors prefer to leave prized possessions abroad. As art critics say, this situation only damages the national cultural heritage. Very often museums’ funds are filled with items from private collections. The reader might recall the Varvara and Bohdan Khanenko Museum, for example. The basis for its foundation were the valuable things that were purchased for the money of Ukrainian art patrons long ago (hence the museum’s name).

“One Ukrainian collector, with our assistance, participated in an international exhibition in Sweden. He presented unique post stamps there. After that his collection was presented at an exhibition held in the US,” said the head of the State Control Sevice Yurii Savchuk. “In order to return a collection that belongs to the Ukrainian man, our service has to pay taxes. However, we, as a state institution, do not have enough money for that. Nobody knows how it all will end up. We have recently restituted items from the Russian Federation that are registered in the Chersonesos Museum, and thus are the property of the Ukrainian state. This is the first time we restituted something like that since independence. Starting from 1964 they were on temporary display at the Museum of Religion and Atheism History in St. Petersburg.

There are no such regulations, neither in the Customs Code nor in the state legislation, that when si-milar values are being restituted, there should be alternatives of custom’s duties. In our situation, all the terms of remaining in warehouses were exhausted, but we, as a state institution, had no money to pay the tax and get them back.

Only with the assistance of the State Customs was this problem resolved. Therefore, the main problem lies in the legislative sphere. Our neighboring countries have no taxes of the kind that are provided for in our legislation. This leads to a situation when most cultural items enter Ukraine through smuggling. In Poland the VAT on the import of cultural items is seven percent, which is why last year we held a public hearing and on that basis developed the amendments to the law. However, they have not been approved yet.”

According to Savchuk, a few years ago the tax on imported cultural values was abolished in Ukraine. In that period the number of people who imported valuables to Ukraine increased from 200 to 5,000. The total value of antiques and collectibles grew by 200 times: from a million and a half to 215 million. It is obvious, that only wealthy and well-off people can afford to buy antiques. However, if to take into account the fact that the best part of the state museum funds were once in private collections, and most of the country’s leading museums grew thanks to this, it is not so bad.

In the amendments to the Law “On Export, Import, and Restitution of Cultural Values,” that were developed by the State Control Service together with the Antiques Guild of Ukraine, it is proposed to abolish the tax on cultural values and also to clearly delineate the concepts of import and export of cultural items. Art critic and a member of the board of the Antiques Guild of Ukraine Olha Sahaidak learned from her own experience that the customs officials often confuse those concepts and, accordingly, require totally unnecessary documents.

“In July this year at one of the auctions in France I bought a work by an artist who worked in Ukaine, studied at the Murashko School in the early 20th century, and then went abroad. I received an invoice and payed all the taxes collected in France. In Ukaine at the customs control I filled in the customs declaration. However, this turned out to be insufficient to take the painting to the airport and get the customs clearance. I had to get a bunch of papers ready, pay VAT (20 percent of the painting’s price), hire a customs broker, find a specialist, who would be able to give an estimate of the painting’s value, and follow a number of other procedures. As a result I had to spend another 700 euros, while the painting itself cost 1,000 euros. It all took me eight working hours, plus my stay at Boryspil. In fact, it all was supposed to be much simpler: filling in the declaration, paying the tax, and going home with the painting. All the procedures I had to follow are necessary when you want to export some cultural values from Ukaine. We are talking a lot about European integration now, waiting for investors, hoping that in 2012 there will be many guests in our country, and not only football fans, but also officials, top-managers, and people interested in Ukraine. It is considered good manners to give a piece of art as a present. A foreigner, who’d face this procedure coming into our country, will have no desire to bring anything next time, and would rather leave that piece of art in the departure zone, to take it back on his way home.”

The Customs Service also agreed that the procedure should be simplified. According to deputy head of the Ukraine’s State Customs Service Stepan Deryvolkov, in Sahaidak’s case there was a violation of the values importation scheme. He said if an individual is bringing in cultural values and has a document which proves that it was paid for in the country this person is leaving, the customs officials have no reason not to trust that person. This is expecially true for cultural items. However, somehow they do not trust this yet. Therefore, the valuable things stay abroad, while they could be presented in museums, teaching Urkainian people about their own and foreign art.