2025 Review

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This presentation will provide an overview of excise systems across
Africa. It will explore both the challenges and opportunities associated with
excise technologies, including how these systems can enhance revenue
collection, improve compliance, curb illicit trade and streamline
administrative processes. Additionally, the presentation will address critical
concerns raised by African countries regarding the adoption and integration of
excise technologies, such as affordability, scalability, and technical capacity.
Finally, it will outline actionable recommendations for governments and
technology providers to overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits of excise technologies in strengthening tax systems and fostering economic
development.

Linstrom Marangu is a Tax Specialist at the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), He provides expert support and advice on health tax policy development and implementation in Africa.

He has more than 13 years of professional work experience working with
governments on various areas including domestic and international taxation, tax
fraud investigations and prosecution, dispute resolution and fiscal policy
development. He is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, a Certified
Professional Mediator, and a holder of PGD Law, PGD Tax Admin, MBA, and LLB
degrees from reputable institutions. He has also collaborated with several
organisations such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, United Nations and many others on various projects related to health taxation, curbing tax evasion and illicit trade, tax policy development and implementation of tax
technologies. He is passionate about enhancing tax administration and
governance in Africa and contributing to the social and economic development of the continent.

More than 50% of cigarettes sold in South Africa (SA) are illicit, up from less than 10% in the early 2000s. Despite this rapid increase in illicit trade, the SA government has not implemented tracking and tracing (T&T) of cigarettes, a best-practice in controlling illicit tobacco.

In 2022, I authored a paper in ‘Tobacco Control’ that estimated the breakeven cost per tax stamp, should SA implement T&T and recover all costs to do so. The paper showed large likely gains from implementing T&T. In the meantime, the illicit trade situation in the country has deteriorated, outdating previous estimates. I have updated the simulation results, making them relevant to SA’s current tobacco landscape. I include scenario analysis, varying consumer responses, tobacco industry pricing responses and T&T system effectiveness.

The 2024 results indicate that, even if the price per stamp is as high as USD 0.37 to USD 0.64 per pack, T&T would generate enough additional revenue to recover the costs associated with T&T. In reality, T&T systems are significantly cheaper (roughly 0.02 USD per pack), so government is almost assured of generating significant additional revenue with T&T.

The simulations reiterate that T&T is a strong fiscal and public health policy. They also provide policymakers with a tool to assist in a tender process. The model can be modified and applied to other countries.

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This presentation will explain Poland’s journey to regulating raw tobacco market. Poland has experimented with a series of measures and ended with a solution that involved affixing tax stamps on cured tobacco.  Examples of inputs control from other countries will also be provided.

Hana Ross received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Ross has over 25 years of experience conducting studies on the economic impact of excise tax policies and other interventions focusing on reducing consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar sweetened beverages. She also works on issues related to illicit trade in tobacco and alcohol, including measuring the size of tax gaps and developing strategies to control illegal cigarette and alcohol markets.

Dr. Ross is a Senior Research Associate at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town. She consults with the World Bank, among other clients. She currently supports research capacity building in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Over the past five years, government-mandated authentication and traceability requirements have expanded significantly. Once primarily applied to traditional excisable products such as alcohol and tobacco, tax stamps and traceability programmes are now being extended to other sectors where illicit trade and counterfeiting pose risks.

This white paper examines this expansion with a particular emphasis on the Republic of Mozambique, where the government has focused on securing, authenticating, and tracking all homologated communication products entering the market. The discussion will outline both the similarities and critical distinctions necessary for designing, implementing, and enforcing government traceability programmes beyond traditional products.

Details will be shared on the advanced optical security and environmental features embedded within each stamp, designed to enable rapid and reliable authentication. It will also cover the distinct in-country system integrations, personalisation, and distribution methodologies employed.

In collaboration, Instituto Nacional das Comunicações de Moçambique (INCM), CSet, and OpSec Security have developed what is believed to be the world’s most secure homologation marking and traceability programme.

Recent earthquakes have shown that poor quality standards on key construction components such as reinforcing bars (rebars) led to a very high death toll and material damage. At the same time, reported volumes of rebars put on market are well below actual production levels, which leads to revenue losses for tax authorities. The proposed technology reports actual production of rebars and provides authentication and track and trace.

The system is now up and running in Turkey, and we are using a secure spray coating to mark all the produced rebars. Smart cameras and AI are used to count production of rebars. And each bundle of rebars then gets a label attached that contains all the information on that bundle and must be used by construction companies to report the quantity and quality of rebars used for each project.

By April 2025, Turkey should start marking and authenticating a second material for the construction industry.

Stefaan D’Hoore holds a Master in Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering Technology at  KU Leuven (Belgium). He joined SunChemical in 1998 where he held different management positions. Since 2008 Stefaan has been leading the Security Inks business at SunChemical. In 2016, Stefaan got promoted to Business Development Director and helped growing the security business to a multi-million business. After the acquisition of Luminescence and the creation of the Luminescence, SunChemical Security Division, Stefaan became Business Development Director Security Inks.

Stefaan has been involved in growing the tax stamp business at Luminescence, SunChemical Security, worked on the introduction of a nationwide secure Deposit Return Scheme for beverage containers and is now focusing on phygital solutions for revenue protection

To control the illicit cigarette market, the government of Pakistan adopted a tracking and tracing system (TTS) that was fully operational by July 2022, despite many roadblocks. By this date, major tobacco companies had either registered their brands with the tax authority and/or installed TTS.

Method: this paper is the first to evaluate the degree of compliance with the TTS by evaluating the extent and nature of illicit trade in tobacco products. We use randomised sampling to collect cigarette packs from waste recycling stores located in the 10 most populous cities of Pakistan, to evaluate illicit trade penetration.

Results and policy implications: almost one third of the packs collected did not bear a tax stamp, mostly due to failed compliance by local companies, confirming a recent review of the TSS implementation by the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR). Even the largest companies that ostensibly adopted the TTS did not fully comply with the system, signalling poor enforcement.

This is a missed opportunity, since a well-functioning TTS supported by proper enforcement is effective in controlling illicit tobacco trade, boosting tax revenue and improving public health. However, the enforcement should not be limited to the TTS, since 23.6% of packs did not comply with other regulatory requirements.

Dr. Estelle Dauchy is a Principal Research Officer and deputy director for the Research Unit on Excisable Products at the University of Cape Town. Prior to joining REEP Dr. Dauchy was associate director of international research and chief economist at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in Washington DC. She also taught at the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia, and at Peking University HSBC School of Business, China, and was a senior economist at Ernst & Young in Washington DC. Dr Dauchy has 20 years of experience working in the fields of taxation and public finance, though her recent work has focused on excise tax policies.  She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor and has published in several peer-reviewed economics
journals.

This paper discusses the role of Pakistan’s Pioneer Revenue Collection Agency (FBR) in handling and implementation of Track and Trace System on four major products: Cigarettes, Cement, sugar and Fertiliser. 

It analyses how the system has been politicised and made controversial and
proposes a way forward not only to bring the system (already in place) back on track but also to extend TTS coverage to other products: Beverages,
Pharmaceuticals, Petroleum Products and Tyres and Tubes.

Digital tax stamps and mobile authentication are not new ideas, however they are not yet widespread. At Quantum Base, we work at the leading edge of non-cloneable, anti-counterfeit solutions. We want to share our vision of what the future looks like, explore the current state of the art technologies, and discuss what's required to push the industry forward.

In this paper, we’ll unveil the disruptive digital technologies revolutionising tax stamp security and safeguarding the world’s most sensitive government programmes. Learn how advanced solutions, such as digital watermarks and AI-powered copy detection tools, provide real-time, field-level authentication and tamper-proof protection across supply chains.

Discover how these innovations integrate with modern production workflows and consumer technologies to strengthen the fight against illicit trade, ensure efficient excise tax collection, and protect citizens. With an eye on scalability and adaptability, our expert, Judy Moon, will share how cutting-edge digital solutions empower governments and industry leaders to outsmart counterfeiters, restore trust, and secure the future of tax stamp programmes – including current tobacco industry success stories.

Join us to explore the next generation of digital anti-counterfeit strategies, which will transform global security standards and deliver unparalleled protection where it matters most.

Tony is the CTO of Digimarc, the pioneer in digital watermarking and has spent 27 years at the intersection of printing, imaging technologies and security.​His focus is in advancing identification, authentication, and anti-counterfeiting technologies, for currency, secure credentialing, tax stamps and in support of commercial customers.​

As the inventor of over 400 issued patents and with numerous publications in content security, digital watermarking, and image processing, Tony is a frequent
speaker and trusted advisor on the design and deployment of document security
solutions for governments, security printers and global brands.​

Tax stamp technology is at a turning point. As illicit trade grows more sophisticated and regulatory demands increase, governments need a new generation of tax stamps; ones that go beyond traditional security features to deliver real-time authentication, seamless traceability, and large-scale operational efficiency.

The answer lies in the integration of high-speed, high-volume Track & Trace systems with advanced digital technology.

This powerful combination enables tax stamps that are not only highly secure but also instantly verifiable without the need for additives or complex infrastructure changes. By leveraging field-proven traceability solutions safeguarding billions of products annually and pairing them with non-intrusive digital authentication, governments gain an unrivalled ability to combat counterfeiting, ensure compliance, and maximize revenue collection.

This session will explore how scalable, next-generation tax stamps are setting new industry standards. Attendees will gain insights into how cutting-edge digital authentication and large-scale Track & Trace capabilities can be seamlessly integrated into tax stamp programs: delivering greater security, efficiency, and control in the fight against illicit trade.

The future of tax stamps is here. Learn how innovative technologies are redefining authentication and traceability at every level.

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Future-proof tax stamp solutions should use physical features, complemented by software-supported authentication. This is to securely and effectively organise data on issuing, distribution and inspection of tax stamps in a country, thus safeguarding tax revenues.

Integrated geo-mapping enables geographical location and comprehensive reporting provides real-time insights into taxpayer and consumer behaviour. These systems integrate seamlessly with proven traditional tax stamps to give them authenticity and integrity, while also enhancing user experience through increased transparency and ease of traceability.

In the context of these technologies, state-of-the-art physical security features play a crucial role. In conjunction with software-based tax stamp systems, these features ensure a new stage of protection against counterfeiting.

As an example, the diffractive ValiGate® feature inextricably links tax stamps with digital verification. A visible digital seal provides both protection against data tampering on the tax stamp and proof of the issuing authority's integrity, enabling easy digital verification via mobile devices.

By combining these optical and digital features, which are most difficult to replicate, the protection and traceability of tax stamps is taken to a new level.

Thomas has a background of 25 years in the security printing industry, starting out in EMV-card manufacturing and personalisation, moving on to ID documents, visas, passports and tax stamps. He started his career in banking card manufacturing and personalization, later heading the international support department for ID-documents, Visas and Passports for an international security printing company. In 2002 he changed into sales with responsibility for the AMEA (Asia-Middle East-Afrika) region.

Working for a classical security printer thereafter, he got vast additional knowhow and experience in the field of tax stamps. Early 2023 Thomas joined the company LEONHARD KURZ Stiftung & Co. KG, being responsible for tax stamp projects worldwide.

Jura is one of the main pre-press system suppliers of the security printing industry. As an R&D company Jura regularly releases new technologies and new security design software versions, partially based on the requirements of the customers, to satisfy the latest requests of the security printing industry and reacts to the challenges of the industry.

The Corvina brand name symbolizes the systematically collected knowledge is the flagship design application of the security printing world, to create all kinds of security documents at top level.

For the analog security printing, today the number of features is unlimited, a little bit exaggerated I would say you can generated anything that you dream about. So the question is: Where the high security design applications develop?

As the digital printing is more and more used in the security printing industry not only for personalization but also for printing the core design, we have to understand what is possible and what is not, to produce quality security products.  

It is also important to note that security features should not be borrowed from traditional security printing but should be developed specifically for digital printing. One of the biggest advantages of digital printing is that all the documents can be personalized not only with a simple serial number but in a very complex way. We can personalize the design as well as any of the printed elements.

The biggest question after producing these products would be: How do we authenticate these items? Certainly there is a solution and there is no need for special tools, only the ones that we have on us on a daily basis. 

During the presentation we will discuss a range of possibilities to design Tax Stamps starting with traditional security printing, combining with digital printing or printing only digital security design.

Barna graduated at the University of Szeged (Hungary) in 1996 and obtained an MBA diploma from University of Pecs (Hungary) in 2004.

He had already a background in printing when he joined JURA in 1996. During his years with Jura, Barna worked with many high security and government printers, conducted many training courses and consulted to the design of security documents. In the recent years he gave several presentations at various high security conferences on Jura's new developments, including the importance of prepress in security printing, new aspects of security designs for offset printing, and new possibilities by intaglio printing.

Discover how digital printing technology can transform tax stamp production by enhancing security, improving process control, and reducing counterfeiting risks. This presentation explores the potential of digital printing to add new security features to the tax stamp, to streamline the supply chain, and provide governments and tax stamp printers with unparalleled flexibility and efficiency. Learn how embracing digital innovation can pave the way for a more secure and sustainable future.

Introducing artificial intelligence (AI) in tax stamp programmes offers transformative potential to enhance compliance and revenue collection. AI-powered tools, such as machine vision, machine learning, deep neural networks and data analytics, can be integrated with all business processes and technology modules of a tax stamp programme. We showcase examples and use cases of applications of AI technology in tax stamp production, production monitoring, fraud detection, performance monitoring and tax policy optimisation

This paper will look at how illicit vapour products are quickly becoming a critical
threat to communities, countries, tax authorities and law enforcement in the
United States and across the globe. Especially in the US, illicit vapes are at
unprecedented levels, with a marked increase in cross-border illicit
trafficking.

The paper will provide an overview of recent public policies that have caused an
increase in illicit vape trafficking, as well as a review of data and evidence
with regard to the illicit marketplace, and its impact on different stakeholders.

This presentation explores the comprehensive framework of Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS), a pivotal tool in modern tax administration. We will begin with an introduction to ETS, highlighting its necessity in enhancing transparency and compliance in the taxation process. The objectives of implementing ETS will be outlined, focusing on improving revenue collection and reducing tax evasion.

Next, we will assess the status of implementation of ETS, discussing the challenges faced and the progress made across various jurisdictions. The modus operandi of ETS will be detailed, illustrating how these digital stamps function as secure identifiers for tracking the movement of goods.

We will also examine the treatment of imports and exports under the ETS framework, exploring the implications for international trade. The impact of ETS on revenue generation and compliance rates will be analyzed, showcasing its effectiveness in achieving policy goals.

Furthermore, we will review enforcement activities associated with ETS, emphasizing the role of technology in monitoring compliance. Finally, we will look ahead to the future of tax stamps, considering potential advancements and the evolving landscape of tax administration.

This presentation aims to provide a holistic understanding of ETS, its operations, and its significance in fostering a fair and efficient tax system.

This paper will use Chile as a best-practice study on how tax stamps and traceability systems do more than increase tax revenues. They are also designed to reduce illegal sales and criminal activity, protect brands, establish clear operating parameters for competitors, reduce health costs for governments, and assure the quality of potentially harmful goods.    

The paper will highlight examples from Chile, including an existing tax stamp programme that helped tax authorities to uncover a formally run illegal operation, and a potentially enormous fish traceability programme that will open the door to ensuring that the illegal fishing of protected or otherwise restricted species is monitored more effectively. And yes, revenues will be protected too! 

Mr. Mandiola is currently head of FMA Corp, a strategic advisory firm that helps both private companies and government entities, primarily in Latin America, with their adaptation to the latest digital, security and business environments.

Mr. Mandiola began his career at a lobbying firm in Washington, DC, before entering the banking world at Lloyds Bank and then returning to Chile to Banedwards (now Banco de Chile). He has held a number of executive roles in different companies and was Managing Director of SKY TV, DIRECTV, and Turner/TimeWarner in Chile as well as working for the Chilean government as Managing Director of Casa de Moneda de Chile (Chile’s State Mint and Printing Company). In this last role, Mr. Mandiola was influential in promoting the use of Tax Stamps, which resulted in the eventual adoption of such a system by Chile's Tax Authority.

Due to his past experience, Mr. Mandiola is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences, as well as a registered consultant for ITSA (International Tax Stamp Association) and Reconnaissance International.

Mr. Mandiola holds degrees from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and the University of California at Irvine, as well as political studies at the University of Essex. In 2019, Mr. Mandiola was certified as a board member by the Universidad de Los Andes in Santiago.

This presentation explores how India, the world’s largest market for liquor tax stamps, is driving sustainable innovation and phygital transformation in
tax stamp technology. With 27 states consuming approximately 30–35 billion tax stamps on liquor bottles annually, India is at the forefront of modernising excise labels by integrating eco-friendly materials and advanced digital security features. The presentation will also highlight India's recent policy
shifts, particularly the new track-and-trace mandate for cigarettes, a key step towards implementing the WHO FCTC protocol. This initiative aims to enhance tax compliance, combat illicit trade, and strengthen consumer protection through physical security solutions.

With over 18 years of industry experience, Chander recently joined Reconnaissance International as Regional Director, supporting activities in publishing, event management, consulting, and other services in the markets for authentication, brand protection, currency, personal identification and secure documents, holography, digital and optical security. Additionally, he serves as the Editor of Holography News® and co-editor of Authentication & Brand News™.

Chander's journey in the anti-counterfeiting industry began in 2006 with the Authentication Solution Providers’ Association (ASPA), where he led operations and pioneered the development of authentication and traceability ecosystems in India. 

Founded in 1993, the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA) represented the interests of hologram manufacturers and the hologram industry worldwide. Now, the IHMA has embraced a bold new identity – The International Optical Technologies Association (IOTA). This presentation will briefly highlight an overview of this strategic decision, the journey, and focus on what this means for the family of optically variable technologies, features and tax stamps in terms of
the Security Image Register (SIR) and anti-counterfeiting.