The State Duma adopted in the first reading a government bill on the transition from excise stamps to digital labeling of tobacco and excisable nicotine-containing products.
"The bill was developed as part of a set of measures to refuse to apply paper stamps to tobacco products with the transition to digital labeling. The term "accounting and control special mark" is being introduced for labeling tobacco and nicotine-containing products with a unique QR code that will be applied to the pack," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov explained at a meeting of the State Duma.
According to the draft law, the term "accounting and control special stamp" is introduced into the Tax Code. It means identification tools that exclude the possibility of forgery and reuse - in fact, it will be a barcode applied to the packaging.
The proposed innovations will preserve the powers of customs authorities to administer excise taxes on tobacco products imported from the EAEU countries. Control over the correctness of determining the tax base for excise taxes on tobacco and nicotine-containing products will also be ensured.
If the size of the tax base determined by the taxpayer turns out to be less than the volume of products sold according to the state information system for monitoring the turnover of labeled goods, the tax base will be determined on the basis of data from this system.
The current version of the document assumes that the law will enter into force on March 1, 2024, but not earlier than one month after its official publication, and not earlier than the 1st day of the next excise tax period. However, by the second reading, the date of entry into force of the law will be clarified.
"It is necessary to synchronize the adoption of this bill with the relevant amendments to the technical regulations on tobacco products, which also abolishes the requirement for labeling with paper stamps. Therefore, by the second reading, we will certainly postpone the date of entry into force of this bill to May 1 or June 1, depending on the timing of the relevant changes to the technical regulations," Sazanov said, answering questions from deputies.
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