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.

In the February issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we launched a series of articles by Chander S Jeena, on the illicit tobacco trade in Southeast Asia and how it is being dealt with. This month we continue the series with an update on the situation in Cambodia.

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

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.

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.

Product authentication and consumer engagement solutions provider YPB Group (which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange) has signed a master service agreement (MSA) with a new channel partner, Specific Products, in Thailand, in order to access the high-volume tobacco and tax stamp industries in that country, according to reports in various financial media.

New investment in track and trace systems, rising excise taxes and wider commercial applications will drive tax stamp growth in the next five years, according to Reconnaissance International’s new tax stamp report.

In a recent interview by the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) with Dr Adriana Blanco Marquizo, Head of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Secretariat, Dr Blanco expressed her concerns with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the progression of the FCTC and its Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products. She further stressed the importance of civil organisations in helping parties to implement FCTC provisions at national, regional and global level.

It has been a decade since Luk Joossens et al published their influential study on the global illicit cigarette market, which examined a sample of 84 countries, and found that 11.6% of the world’s cigarette market was illicit. The study also found that eliminating illicit trade in cigarettes globally would reduce cigarette consumption by 2%, generating at least $31 billion in tax revenues, and preventing millions of deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives, health and financial well-being of many across the globe. Unfortunately, though, it did not disrupt illicit trade, which is not only alive and well but actually thriving as the pandemic rages on. Countless government and news reports show that the pandemic has created ideal conditions for illicit trade to grow and present an ever-increasing threat.

The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) of Nepal has issued a fresh global tender for excise tax stamps for tobacco, spirits, wine, beer and cider, reports The Kathmandu Post. A tender notice was issued on 14 October and all participants have until 29 November to submit their bids.

One of the largest illegal cigarette factories ever discovered in the Netherlands has been dismantled by law enforcement, with 13 arrests and seizures of 3.6 million cigarettes and 32 tonnes of tobacco.

In September, the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, a key partner in the STOP campaign (Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products) published a case study and profile on South Africa and the country’s handling of the illicit tobacco trade.

In January 2019, Tanzania rolled out the first phase of its ‘Electronic Tax Stamp’ (ETS) programme, on cigarettes, spirits, wine and beer, followed seven months later by domestic and imported flavoured water and carbonated drinks.

The Department of Revenue and Taxation (DRT) of the US island territory of Guam in the Western Pacific, is opposing proposed legislation that would require it to hire a private company for the enforcement of tobacco taxes, as well as for the administration of a cigarette tax stamp programme that was supposed to be implemented in October 2018, but which is yet to see the light of day.

An extensive lobbying effort by the tobacco industry has been revealed in a paper by researchers at the University of Bath (UK), published in October in Tobacco Control.

In October, the International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) wrote to Julio Castilla Peláez, President of the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (CCCR), responding to an article in the La Nación newspaper titled ‘Traders reject attempt to revive plan to label and monitor liquor’.