Part of any anti-illicit product strategy should ideally include measures to reduce consumer demand for illicit products in the first place. While such measures could include imposing penalties on consumers for buying illicit goods, Taiwan has gone in the opposite direction with a scheme that rewards consumers for buying genuine, compliant goods.

De La Rue has signed a contract with the Oman Tax Authority to implement a tax stamp and digital traceability solution for excisable goods.

Conferences are back! And this includes the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™, which takes place from 16-18 May 2022 in Malta. The programme is well on its way to being finalised, and here we share some of the papers and discussions confirmed so far.

Over the years, the business case for using tax stamps has increased considerably, in tandem with the emergence of new technologies and best practices for managing excise and other goods that require robust supply chain controls.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has appointed Dentsu Tracking, a specialised brand of Dentsu International Switzerland, as provider of the UK’s standalone tobacco track and trace system.

TAXMAP®, an e-invoicing and tax filing platform based on the use of blockchain bookkeeping and digital tax stamps, has been awarded a UK Smart Grant of £500,000 from Innovate UK. The grant will be used by TAXMAP to provide e-commerce companies with a real-time, cross-border tax and audit compliance solution.

Reconnaissance International, publisher of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, is pleased to announce the launch of its monthly publication, Authentication & Brand News™, with effect from January 2022, replacing Authentication News®.

Launched in 2021, HP Inc has installed its newly imported HP Indigo 6K Secure Digital Press in Nepal, for the local production of tax stamps and other secure documents.

In the August 2021 issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we covered some rather controversial changes that Ecuador’s tax authority, Servicio de Rentas Internas (SRI) had pushed through back in April in the form of Resolution NACDGERCGC21-00000019.

OpSec Security has launched OpSec® SuRe, a new family of surface relief effects for security and brand protection applications that provide striking Level 1 features.

In December last year, Economist Impact, part of the Economist Group, convened a roundtable titled ‘Continental shift: tackling illicit trade in Europe’ to discuss the fundamental changes illicit trade has undergone in Europe and to provide insights into how governments, service providers and industry need to address the issue.

Hungary-based ANY Security Printing has signed an agreement to acquire Romanian forms production and personalisation services provider Atlas for €1.37 million ($1.55 million).

The deadline for submitting a 200-word abstract on your proposed topic or case study is 28 January 2022.

Jura Security Printing recently held a series of practical workshops in Budapest, Hungary to discuss the future of security printing. This was one of the first events in the last year or so that customers and suppliers had physically travelled to in order to meet up in person, so it was filled with plenty of energy and enthusiasm.

Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reported 11% higher tax revenues from the sugar sector, following the expansion of its tax stamp and track and trace system in November last year (the system was initially launched on domestically produced tobacco products earlier in 2021).

If you rang in the New Year with that hard-to-find bottle of bourbon you had been hunting down in off-the-beaten-path stores or through a private social media collectors’ group, you might have been getting more than you bargained for… you might have gotten counterfeit.

The International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) is inviting regional government authorities to a pre-conference seminar to discuss best practices and lessons learned in the tracking and tracing of excise products, especially tobacco and alcohol.

No review of 2021 would be complete without mention of the COVID-19 pandemic and the dramatic effect it has had on almost everything – including illicit trade.

A review of this year's headlines.

In the United States, state and local governments have been facing the challenges of regulating cannabis and hemp for medicinal and adult use. These challenges are now going international as more countries consider regulatory programs.