Violation of the provisions of the Excise Tax Act may mean not only the criminal tax liability but also the confiscation of goods subject to excise duty. The loss of high value goods can be more aggravating than criminal sanctions.
The risk of the loss of excise goods due to confiscation is also possible in the event of a breach of the procedures relating to the movement of excise goods within the European Union under the so-called intra-Community acquisition and intra-Community supply of goods.
Cases where excise goods can be confiscated (declaration of their forfeiture) are specified in the Tax Penal Code.
Confiscation is possible in particular to the trader who purchases, stores, transports, transfers or transfers excise goods not marked with correct excise duties. However, the catalogue does not end there. The forfeiture concerns not only goods not marked with excise duty but also those to which other obligations laid down in the Excise Tax Act have been violated.
one the most important processes relating to the turnover of excise goods are the suspension procedure for excise duties, which allows the duty to pay excise duty to be deferred or transferred to another entity in the supply chain. The storage of the goods covered by this procedure shall take place in a tax warehouse under authorisation. For example, goods which are stored outside the tax warehouse under the suspension procedure are confiscated.
The risk of the loss of excise goods due to confiscation is also possible in the event of a breach of the procedures relating to the movement of excise goods within the European Union under the so-called intra-Community acquisition and intra-Community supply of goods. However, these activities are in great simplicity an analogy to imports and exports within the community.
Certain activities concerning excise goods require supervision by state authorities. Failure by an entrepreneur to comply with this obligation is another case that gives rise to the possibility of losing objects. The risk of confiscation shall also apply to goods manufactured, imported, sold or marked with excise duties without official verification.
This figure only includes examples of cases where excise goods can be lost as a result of a forfeiture decision. Economic activity related to the turnover of excise goods requires great care in applying tax rules.