This month, we sat down with the new Chair of the International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA), Tim McIntyre of Canadian Bank Note Company Limited, to discuss his background, his thoughts on the industry and how he plans to support an evolution of ITSA to take a more agile and proactive leadership position within the field of tax stamps and traceability.
Tim McIntyre.
Q: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about Canadian Bank Note?
A: I come from the logistics world, starting in 2004 when I joined FedEx. I helped build out their government services vertical, then Purolator Courier (Canada’s top domestic courier company) brought me over to fix their government vertical.
My move to Canadian Bank Note came in the most Canadian way possible: on a bench between shifts during a men’s league hockey game. I was talking with Spencer Mandy, our VP of Currency and Excise Control, about how fast things were growing with cannabis legalisation, and that this new sector was going to explode with a whole set of needs and challenges beyond our existing roster of licenced tobacco producers.
One thing led to another, and a few meetings later, they brought me on. Now I lead the Excise Control Division, helping navigate challenges, finding new solutions and structuring a team that delivers Canada’s excise program to tobacco, cannabis and vape licensees, as well as other international excise control solutions.
Canadian Bank Note itself has been around since 1897, when we began printing notes for individual banks across Canada. When the country moved to a unified currency in 1935, we began supplying banknotes to the Bank of Canada and ultimately became the sole producer.
We’ve grown into a global leader in secure government documents and systems, covering everything from currency and passport production to driver’s licenses and national ID cards, border security solutions, lotteries and charitable gaming – and of course, excise control.
Q: Where do you see opportunities for ITSA to develop its activities?
A: Exploring the responses from our recent member survey, we took that feedback as a call to action. There’s room for more discussion and touchpoints between our membership community. We’ve kicked off the process of developing avenues and platforms by which we can be better at encouraging discussion, working together, sharing ideas, finding areas of opportunity and further developing industry-wide best practices and standards.
Our other goal is to reinforce our position as the authority on tax stamp solutions around the globe. We can establish ourselves as the reliable reference point for organisations worldwide to look to when contemplating problems they’re having in their own backyards, and across borders.
We should speak to revenue authorities with specificity, not simply in broad terms of what the industry does, but about their particular challenges, and ultimately how we as an industry can help address them.
Vaping is one example area of opportunity. It isn’t yet regulated and excised to the extent that tobacco is around the world. There’s very little domestic manufacturing – most production is based in China – so we’ve got vulnerable supply chains and potentially unsafe product in the hands of the general public. It’s time to invite authorities to very focused sessions on issues like this, or, as another example, where they are on their legalised cannabis journey, be it medicinal or recreational.
We can create more value for members, strengthen and grow our collective efforts, and actively put ourselves in front of revenue authorities and governments, reminding them that we’re paying attention to the challenges they’re facing and bringing them solutions. We’re an all-encompassing industry body with the tools, the knowledge, the resources and the experience to help solve problems.
Q: As an organisation, ITSA champions a ‘phygital’ approach to tax stamps and track and trace systems: physical and digital features combined. What are your thoughts on that?
A: Digital without physical is nothing. To touch all stakeholders involved in an effective excise control solution – revenue authorities, economic operators, enforcement agencies, retailers and the general public – you need layered physical security features that can be recognised by an untrained eye, plus digital features which can provide deeper informational levels for those with the knowledge and equipment to read it.
Most people don’t even see QR codes or barcodes today. Digital markings have entered into the realm of blind ubiquity in our world. The average person thinks nothing of them or the information they contain. Humans recognise physical features carried on added secured stamps, like shifting colour, hyper-detailed linework and microtexting, tactility and design. When something’s off with one of those aspects, they know instinctively.
Let me give you an example: if you’ve ever been passed a counterfeit banknote, maybe you didn’t even recognise it immediately with your eyes, but the feel of it was wrong. The second it touched your hand, suspicions arose. That’s the point where closer visual inspection began for you, I guarantee it.
Excise stamps should be viewed as mini-banknotes. There are tools to turn the average person’s smartphone into a verification device, but you need physical triggers to draw the public’s attention. I said at our workshop during the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™ in Cape Town: any enforcement agency that isn’t leveraging the power and reach of their general public is weakened.
Of course, there are huge opportunities to leverage on the digital side, but it’s only through combining layered physical security with digital checkpoints that you truly hit all security levels across all stakeholders, culminating in a robust, highly effective excise control solution.
