What Are Excise Goods?
Excise goods are goods containing alcohol, tobacco products, and mineral oil. When you import, sell or use excisable goods in the EU you have to pay excise duty. Since 2008 the EU member states have harmonized the excise duties within the EU, although there still are some country-specific rules.
There are also some special territories within the EU that where the harmonized tariffs don apply and some territories that have a special regime. For a full overview, check here.
A Modern Framework
Recently the Council of the EU has announced that they have agreed on a modernized framework for these excise goods.
The aim of these proposals is to align the EU excise and customs procedures, so as to improve the freedom of movement for excise goods released for consumption in the single market while ensuring that the correct tax is collected by the member states. It also aims to reduce the administrative and legal burdens for small companies. The proposals contain a number of measures to streamline and simplify the processes covering export and import interaction and intra-EU movements of excise products.
Read it All
The full text of the proposals for the new framework is now being drawn up, with the appropriate legislation. When these have been finalized the EU council will adopt the new framework.
The full text of the agreement can be found here.
You can read the full statement of the EU Council here.
We will keep you posted on further developments.
Excise and a Tax Warehouse
If your company is importing and storing large quantities of Excise Goods of Products containing alcohol, like beer, wine, intermediate products (e.g. port, sherry), liquor and perfumes. it can get expensive if you have to pay all the excise duties immediately. Customs Support Group can help you with that and set up your tax warehouse where you can store Excise Goods without having to pay the excise. Excise will have to be paid once the goods are delivered to your end customer for resale or use.
If you’d like to know more about excise on alcohol, storing goods in a tax warehouse or want assistance with establishing one, please contact one of our specialists.
Cheers!
Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash
