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.

The ability to link a physical object such as a stamp, label, or direct mark into the digital space, through mobile devices such as a smartphone, is an area of great current interest. A key question to consider is how this physical/digital link may change so we can ensure our technologies keep pace with these changes.

Despite great efforts at a global level, illicit trade has grown into a pandemic, and India is no exception.

There are two conferences coming up soon which show just how important optical security features still are for authenticating documents such as banknotes, ID, and tax stamps.

Several large-scale seizures over the course of this year have shown that a concerning development, identified during Europol’s Serious and Criminal Organized Crime Assessment 2021 (SOCTA-21), has unfortunately not abated.

In a press statement marking the fifth anniversary of the introduction of excise tax in the United Arab Emirates, the country’s Federal Tax Authority hailed its implementation as an all-round success.

Sri Lanka’s Commissioner General of Excise, M J Gunasiri, has announced that excise revenues from arrack and other alcoholic beverages have plummeted by 40%.

SICPA and nanotechnology company UbiQD have announced an expansion of their partnership to develop security inks based on the latter’s quantum dot technology.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.