The European Union represents the world’s first attempt at implementation of wide-scale, multi-country tobacco traceability and the largest iteration of the FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (the Protocol) in action. The implications in relation to one of the world’s largest tobacco market’s interpretation and implementation of the Protocol, as well as the benefits that traceability can provide in terms of combatting illicit trade, has the significant potential to influence tobacco traceability the world over.

In last month’s Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we launched a new series on the use of tax stamps and associated track and trace systems in different regions of the world, starting with Africa. This month, we shift the focus to the Middle East.

Smart packaging is an area that is pertinent to the interests of our community. It has links to track and trace, product labelling and interaction with the brand through technology. The aim of this article is to take a wider look at trends in smart packaging and consider some of the potential implications for tax stamps and track and trace solutions.

Remember when we wrote a while back in Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ about the very plain, unsecured, serialised barcode label that had been introduced in Delhi, India to track and trace spirits, wine and beer products between distillery and final retailer (TSN January 2016)?

The Gaelic word ‘whisky’ can roughly be translated into English as ‘water’ and so it comes as no surprise that sales of the golden liquid are worth roughly £5 billion annually to Scotland’s economy. As with many premium products, whisky is a favourite target for counterfeiters, which not only takes income away from the legitimate brand owner but deprives revenue authorities of much needed taxes.

​At the beginning of January, the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP), began a month-long training workshop on the procedures and processes leading to the implementation of excise tax stamps on several products sold on the Liberian market, reports LRA on its Facebook page.

The time has now come for us to be considering the changes that the current pandemic will make to our industry. The purpose of this article is to look at the reshaping of one particular technology with the intention of prompting a similar appraisal of others. It is does not attempt to identify all the solutions but to at least propose a framework for the questions.

Cannabis Global, Inc, a provider of what it calls disruptive cannabis and hemp-related technologies, has announced an enhancement to its Comply Bag™ Cannabis Transport System, in the shape of a fully integrated application that will allow shippers and receivers to track, monitor and confirm important aspects of cannabis shipments.

A new study focusing on the trends and challenges of counterfeit and illicit trade in the high-tech sector – as well as the technologies for combatting such trade – provides interesting insights that are of relevance to other industries, including excise products.

The UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has unveiled proposals for tougher sanctions against small-scale sellers of illicit tobacco, while at the same time putting in place its post-Brexit tobacco supply chain control measures.

We kick off 2021 with a new series on the use of tax stamps and their associated track and trace systems in different regions of the world – starting with Africa. The series provides a summary of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of tax stamp usage, together with country profiles, which formed a significant part of Reconnaissance’s recently released report ‘Tax Stamps & Traceability: A Market Analysis and Technical Update’.

The Pakistan Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has held a pre-bidding conference for granting a five-year licence for what it describes in a public announcement as an ‘IT-based Solution for Electronic Monitoring (Track and Trace System) for Tobacco Products, Sugar, Fertiliser and Cement’.

It may not have been like the in-person seminars we’re all accustomed to, or yearning for, but we were very happy to report that the International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) webinar for the Latin American region, held on 3 December under the title ‘Illicit Tobacco during Lockdown: Controlling Tobacco in a COVID-19 Context’, drew close to 150 registrants from all over the Spanish-speaking world.

A review of this year's headlines.

A review by Ian Lancaster, project leader for ISO 22382 tax stamp guidance standard.

Phew! What a year 2020 was! A year which had a profound, and mostly adverse effect on almost all countries and industry sectors – including those sectors concerned with excise administration and controlling the illicit trade of excise products.

AIPIA, the Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association, held its conference on Smart Packaging in mid-September – it’s first ‘Virtual Congress’.

The National Office of Vine and Vitivinicultural Products (ONVPV) in Romania is using holographic labelling from security printer Eltronis to promote the provenance of its regional wines and protect consumers from potential counterfeits.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still very much with us and as we head towards the end of 2020, the world remains mired in uncertainty and various degrees of lockdown – albeit with a light at the end of tunnel in the shape of a viable vaccine.

On 3 November, voters in the United States sent a clear message to policy makers and legislators alike. Those in four states – Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota – approved statewide ballot measures to legalise marijuana for personal use. In addition, voters in Mississippi and South Dakota approved statewide ballot measures to legalise marijuana for medical use.