The term ‘biometrics’ is commonly used to describe technologies that employ human features that are unique to individuals – such as fingerprints or retinal eye patterns – as a way to identify those individuals. But the term is also employed, within the authentication industry, to describe technologies which use the intrinsic microscopic or molecular properties unique to items such as tax stamps to identify and thereby authenticate those items. Hence the term ‘document biometrics’, or ‘fingerprinting’.

In July, the Philippines government reached a milestone in its fuel marking programme when it surpassed 10 billion litres of fuel marked, according to a BusinessWorld article.

The Indonesian company Perum Peruri, which was selected in March to supply tobacco and alcohol tax stamps to Nepal’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD), has failed to show up for the signing of the contract for the stamps, reports The Kathmandu Post. This situation is made all the more strange considering Perum Peruri’s longstanding relationship with the department.

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 Vietnam.

In April, the Moscow Printing Factory of Goznak announced that it had started a pilot project, together with Russia’s Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation, for the application of what it called ‘special’ stamps to beer and low-alcohol beverages.

In the April edition of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ (TSTN) we looked at the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic vis-à-vis the tax stamp industry with a view to anticipating what the implications might be for the industry. This article provides an update of sorts, exploring the same themes in terms of additional data points that may help us to better understand how the industry may be impacted.

SICPA has been awarded a new 10-year contract to implement its SICPA Excise Tax System (SETS), which will provide a secure, online platform for the payment, collection, and tracking of Oregon’s alcohol privilege taxes (also known as excise taxes).

The International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) has responded to criticism of paper-based tax stamps in a new report on the use of blockchain technology for collecting excise duties.

In a few months’ time, the current contract for the fuel marking scheme in Mozambique will reach expiry, but it seems likely that the country will choose to continue the scheme, given the positive impact it has had on tax revenues, reports the pan-African news platform The African Exponent.

In the year following the US state of Michigan’s introduction of a new tobacco excise tax stamp in 2014, tax revenues increased by $15.7 million – when they had in fact been predicted to decline – and exceeded the forecast for the year by nearly $30 million. Furthermore, it took only one year to recoup the costs of introducing this new stamp. Similarly, in Mozambique, alcohol and tobacco excise tax revenues increased by 85% in the first year after the introduction of a new stamp in 2017.

An international trade body is on a mission to recruit new members who can help fight the fraudulent trade of tobacco, alcohol and other products.

During the recent Tax Stamp Forum™ in Budapest, Victor Villalón, former Head of the Chilean Internal Revenue Service’s Tax Compliance General Department, described the ‘digital enforcement powers’ bestowed on the service, in the shape of a new cigarette tax stamp and traceability programme implemented in March this year.

If you ask an astronomer what a ‘quasar’ is, they’ll tell you it’s an extremely bright celestial object emitting an immense amount of energy in the form of, say, light or infrared radiation, from a compact source. Recently, SICPA launched its own ‘brightest star’ – QUAZAR® – which it describes as an optical security technology offering vibrant colours and engaging visible effects that are quick and easy for end users to authenticate, without the need for prior training.

In November, the President of the Authentication Solution Providers Association, Mr Nakul Pasricha, was interviewed by Ambrosia (a magazine for the alcoholic beverages industry) on the impact of illicit trade on India’s alcohol market.

During a Kazakh-Swiss roundtable business forum, held on 22 November in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan (and part of the official visit of Swiss President Ueli Maurer to the country), a cooperation agreement was signed between the Swiss company SICPA SA and Transtelecom JSC – one of the leading information and telecom service providers in Kazakhstan.

This month, in Panama, the first meeting of a working group set up by the parties to the WHO FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products was held, with a focus on the tracking and tracing, global information-sharing focal point and unique ID requirements of the Protocol.

The Pakistan tender award for a tax stamp, electronic monitoring and track and trace system for tobacco products (announced in last month’s Tax Stamp & Traceability News™), has been challenged in the Islamabad and Karachi high courts, with a number of bidders filing formal complaints with regard to the allegedly spurious manner in which their bids were evaluated.

An intriguing and important discussion regarding the relative role of human senses and digital methods in authentication has been sparked by two contrasting presentations at the recent Tax Stamp Forum™. Ian Lancaster, who presented one of those papers, here describes the contrasting presentations and the follow-up discussion.

Excise taxes are levied on the sale and use of certain products and services. They are charged directly from businesses and then the costs are passed on to consumers to some extent, often in an obscure way. Like other taxes based on income and consumption, excise taxes are designed to generate substantial revenue for governments. What is unique about them, however, is that they strategically target specific ‘necessities’ deemed harmful to health and/or the environment.

The Portuguese Mint and Official Printing Office, INCM SA, in a presentation by Nuno Gonçalves at the recent Tax Stamp Forum™ in Budapest, described its new coding system, but unlike other such systems, this one, UNIQODE®, is artistically as well as technically innovative. (Patents are pending.)