Excise duties: EMCS system extended
An amendment to the Excise Duty Act implementing Council Directive (EU) 2020/262 enters into effect partly in October 2022 and fully from 13 February 2023. The directive aims to enhance harmonisation across member states, clarify the terms used, and extend the obligations regarding the EMCS system.
A significant change is the extension of the Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS), a computerised system for monitoring the movement of excise goods within the EU, which will now also include the movement of selected products between member states under a duty suspension arrangement. At the same time, EMCS will be interconnected with the Czech Customs Administration’s system for the import and export of selected products. This will ensure more rigorous supervision and eliminate tax evasion.
Another novelty is the regulation concerning goods released for free circulation for tax purposes in one member state, but at the same time transported to another member state. The amendment stipulates a notification obligation for the persons receiving selected products, i.e., the registered consignees. This solution is mainly used by small and medium-sized enterprises, which are likely to welcome rules being set for this type of shipments.
The amendment brings many more changes, including new provisions dealing with an exemption for the partial loss of selected products or the possibility of introducing a tax representative of the consignor in distance selling. The legislators also tried to clarify certain terms to make it easier for taxpayers to understand the issues.