During the 2023 Tax Stamp and Traceability Forum™, held in Tbilisi, Georgia, I chaired a panel discussion on a topic that remains of ongoing interest to tax authorities: how are tax stamps really being authenticated in the field, and how are inspectors ensuring taxpayer compliance?

Lebanon is one of the few nations where the tobacco sector, including tobacco leaf farming and manufacturing, falls under state control.

The governor of California, USA, has approved a law to eliminate single-use plastic RFID tags for tracking and tracing marijuana plants.

Whether you use tax stamps or you don’t use tax stamps, let’s face it, illicit trade still exists. The difference is, tax stamps and associated track and trace and production monitoring systems help make illicit trade stand out more (like a sore thumb), plus they make it easier to trace illicit trade back to its origin, and identify at what point in the supply chain legal trade may have become illegal trade.

Since the introduction of its digital tax stamp, tracing, and reporting programme, Uganda has experienced continuous and sustained acceptance, implementation of and compliance with the programme.

The third session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP3) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products will take place on 27-30 November in Panama, and the provisional agenda has now been released.

Tobacco stakeholders and the European Commission disagree over the practical value of the EU track and trace system on tobacco products, implemented across all member states in May 2019 as part of the Tobacco Products Directive, reports EURACTIV.

Secure marking and excise taxes operate hand in glove. But excise duties usually account for a small percentage of countries’ overall tax take.

While direct marking could be considered as an opportunity for traceability solutions, it could also be viewed as a threat to physical tax stamps.

SICPA has finalised the roll-out of its SICPATRACE® platform in the US state of Michigan, under a new five-year contract with the Department of Treasury.