In late August 2022, a series of enforcement actions by California’s Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) pushed the amount of illegal cannabis seized passed the $1 billion mark.

De La Rue has appointed David Sharratt as Managing Director of its Authentication division, replacing Andrew Clint, who has resigned to pursue other opportunities, after three years leading the division – and over 13 years with the company.

The government of Nepal’s Security Printing Center in Kathmandu has issued an invitation for electronic bids for the secure printing, supply, and delivery of excise stamps on behalf of the Inland Revenue Department.

Although secure track and trace systems are considered one of the most effective measures for reducing illicit trade, some governments are reluctant to implement them because of concerns about their cost.

For over 17 years, Pakistan’s revenue authority, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), has been in the crosshairs of providers of tax stamp and track and trace systems for excise products prone to revenue leakage.

The ability to link a physical object such as a stamp, label, or direct mark to the digital space, through devices such as a smartphone is a persuasive and growing field.

The Department of Excise & Taxation of Chandigarh (one of 36 states in India) has invited an expression of interest for the selection of a technology for a tax stamp and end-to-end track and trace system on alcohol products.

The menace of illicit seeds continues to haunt farmers across the globe. And when it’s the festive season, the problem starts mushrooming in almost all countries and continents, irrespective of whether it is India in Asia, Ecuador in South America, Georgia in Europe, or Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Tanzania in Africa.

In the past ten years or so, quantum materials have become increasingly interesting to scientists looking for properties not usually exhibited by classical structures. While most solids display varying degrees of repeatability in the array of atoms from which they are formed, when you get down to the atomic level, where quantum effects are most pronounced, materials display unique attributes due to their randomness.

During the last Tax Stamp and Traceability Forum™, held in Malta in May of this year, Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ was able to interview Milagro J Mendoza, a Panamanian lawyer who specialises in tax-related issues in her country and who works for the General Directorate of Revenue (DGI – or Dirección General de Ingresos) in Panama.

At the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™ in May 2022, I presented a paper on the emerging technologies that I believe will have significant impact on the tax stamp business sector. From this came an article in Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ in June summarising the threats and opportunities from these. The aim of this article is to take a deeper look into one of these technologies – digital printing.

In the July 2022 issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, Dr Marietta Ulrich-Horn of Securikett stated that her company had always maintained a strong focus on tamper-evident solutions for tax stamps, because if a genuine stamp can be transferred to another product for reuse, it’s as if that stamp were actually a fake, whatever the number of security features it was carrying.

This year has so far proven very successful for Authentix, as far as contract wins for fuel marking and tax stamp/marking systems on the African continent are concerned.

The tax stamp started life as a piece of paper that was almost the same for every product, but that soon evolved into different designs for different products, says Swiss company U-NICA, a leading provider of product and brand value protection solutions.

The consumption of alcoholic beverages is deeply embedded in many societies worldwide. According to Statista, global consumption in 2019 generated $1.53 trillion in legally registered sales (recorded alcohol), equating to total volume sales of more than 296 billion litres.

Although excise tax management systems and tobacco control programmes have different goals, there is a point at which these goals overlap, given that both parties have an interest in eliminating illicit trade.

Every government needs revenue to run the affairs of its country in the best possible manner. Tax evasion and leakages work like a parasite feeding off the overall wellbeing of citizens, which is why every government seeks to plug those leakages, and thus recover lost revenues.

On 1 June, SICPA Morocco inaugurated its new regional coding centre for highly secure tax stamps in the industrial zone of Sidi Bernoussi in Casablanca.

The Indian state of Rajasthan is implementing holographic tax stamps and an end-to-end traceability system on liquor products, to allow the state excise department to track and trace each bottle and case of liquor.

Counterfeit liquor, which for years has been a problem for connoisseurs of fine wine, champagnes, and single-malt scotch, has started to become an issue for America’s fine brown liquor – bourbon.