Tax Stamp Scheme's Effectiveness Questioned

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 10/20/2010

A multi-million-euro tax stamp scheme intended to fight Albania's illicit tobacco and alcohol trade could be costly and ultimately ineffective, according to an investigation by Besar Likmeta and Gjergj Erebara for Balkan Insight. Swiss-based SICPA Securities has been awarded an exclusive contract to supply revenue stamps for the Albanian government that is potentially worth tens of millions of euro over 35 years, but the new fiscal stamps system is said not to be in line with international agreements on combating the illicit trade in tobacco products. A February 22 confidential report by the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), whose talking points were obtained by Balkan Insight, is said to state that "… the system only covers some aspects of authentication", determining whether the product is counterfeit or real and how much has been produced. According to the same report, SICPA's marking system does not fulfil minimum tracking requirements under the FCTC regime because its codes are not "humanly readable… and not in line with international coding serialization standards". Enditem