2019 Review

Digital Tax Administration

by Elguja Loliashvili & Davit Chitaishvili

This paper describes the digital services that we have implemented to simplify tax compliance for our taxpayers and at the same time ensure greater tax collection and address other tax challenges. We will describe the most important digital services and the solutions we have found within our tax administration processes (in total we have about 150 electronic services available for our taxpayers).

Elguja Loliashvili

Elguja Loliashvili is Head of the Taxpayer Service Division at the Revenue Service of Georgia and has been working in the tax administration sector for the last 13 years, mainly in the field of taxpayer services.

Elguja is in charge of supporting and managing the services provided by the Georgian tax administration to taxpayers, as well as other processes performed by its service centres.

His division is also responsible for organising and supervising the issuing of tax stamps for excise goods (like tobacco, alcohol and beer). And he also has experience in implementing projects such as new GPRS-based cash registers in Georgia, as well as a track and trace system for excise/non-excise goods.

Davit Chitaishvili

David Chitaishvili is the head of International Taxation Cooperation Division at Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia. In this role he supervises the activities of the Division and stuff that are responsible drafting, negotiating and concluding international agreements related to taxation, exchange of information, technical assistance and other types of cooperation. His division leads different international projects, represents Revenue Service and Georgia in international and regional organizations such as Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD), Intra-European Organization of Tax Administrations (IOTA), Forum on Tax Administrations (FTA), Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax purposes (Global Forum), and others.
Mr. Chitaishvili is a member of several working groups and bodies of the OECD and Global Forum, such as Automatic Exchange of Information Group (AEOI), Peer Review Group (PRG), OECD Working Party 10, and Inclusive Framework of BEPS. David is also guest lecturer at Ilia State University and leading the course of International Business Law for the students of Masters’ Program.
David is also founder and the member of the Supervisory Board of the Arbitration Initiative Georgia – AIG.
David earned BA in Law from Tbilisi State University and LLM in International Business Law from Central European University (CEU), Budapest. He has defended his Master’s thesis in International Arbitration.

Traceability in Tobacco Products and Unique Identifiers: the Spanish Case

by Luis Gavira Caballero & Carlos Gómez Gómez

The Commissioner for the Tobacco Market (CMT), under the Ministry of Finance, is the competent body in Spain to safeguard the neutrality and free competition of the tobacco market within the national territory, by means of its regulatory and oversight functions, as well as by ensuring compliance of market operators with all regulatory regulations. The CMT also administers and supervises the State Tobacco and Stamp Expender Network and acts as an interlocutory body with market operators.
FNMT-RCM acts in Spain as a manufacturer of tobacco stamps and as the issuer of unique identifiers.
Both organisations have been involved in the development of a joint project that guarantees the traceability of tobacco products, and which is expected to serve as an example in other sectors suffering the effects of counterfeiting and parallel trade.

The Future of the Tax Stamp as a Tool for ALL Government Agencies

by Karambu Muthaura

Currently in most countries/economies, like ours, different government agencies have a requirement for a mark to show compliance. A good example is the Kenya Bureau of Standards which requires a mark on locally produced goods and imports (a mark of conformity) and Kenya Revenue Authority which requires an excise stamp on excisable products. Other government bodies/agencies will also have to approve either products or companies and this means that a manufacturer or importer will have to bear the cost of all these marks.

The idea is to transform the Revenue Authority stamp into a single government mark of compliance for all agencies, which means that all approvals by these different agencies would pass through the same platform. The final approver would be the Revenue Authority which would also be the issuer of the tax stamp. This paper/digital stamp would then carry all the information required for companies to demonstrate compliance, thus making the cost of doing business cheaper (they would only have to pay for one mark/stamp). Furthermore, a product would not lose its appeal by being crowded with all manner of ‘government stamps’.

Introducing Tax Stamps for Liquor and Liquor-Based Products: the Sri Lankan Experience

by Aqthar Hassen

This presentation will cover the following points:

– Brief history of Sri Lanka Customs;
– Pilferages, leakages and illegal removal of foreign liquor products from duty-free shops and service bonded warehouses;
– Proposal of tax stamps for duty-free liquor under customs control;
– Budget proposal for application of tax stamps in Sri Lanka in 2016;
– Gazette notification of June 2019 for implementation;
– Sri Lanka Customs takes the lead to implement tax stamps on liquor products sold at duty-free shops from July 2019.

Aqthar Hassen

Aqthar Hassen presently works as Deputy Director of Customs in the Bonding Directorate of Sri Lanka Customs and counts 31 years of service. He holds an LLM in international trade from the University of Wales and an LLM in maritime law from the University of Colombo. He is also an attorney-at-law at the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Aqthar is an expert trainer at Sri Lanka Customs where he conducts capacity building programmes for senior customs officials. He is a well-recognised source on customs laws and procedures and has participated in several programmes and workshops conducted by the World Customs Organisation.