Excise duties must be paid when the following products are released for consumption:
- alcoholic products : beers wines alcohols and intermediate products, etc.
- tobaccos: cigarettes, cigars, tobaccos, etc.
- energy products and electricity: fuels, LPG, methane natural gas and energy products used for heating, etc.
Excise duties are paid in the Member State of the European Union (EU) in which the products are released for consumption. Before this stage, excise suspensive arrangements allow the production, storage and circulation of products between businesses without paying the excise duties at this stage, that is, under excise duty suspension.
Circulation of excise products under duty suspension
Businesses that wish to produce, process, hold, send or receive excise products under duty suspension must use one of the different excise suspensive arrangements. For that, they must hold one or more authorization(s) delivered by the Customs and Excise Administration as described on the Guichet.lu website. A guarantee covering a percentage or the totality of suspended excise duties must be filed with the Customs and Excise Administration for any excise authorization.
The type of the authorization depends on the activities of the applicant:
- the authorized warehousekeeper may produce, process, hold, receive and send excise products under duty suspension in a tax warehouse
- the registered consignor may send previously imported excise products, under duty suspension arrangement
- the registered consignee may receive excise products under duty suspension, in order to pay the excise duties
- the temporarily registered consignee may occasionally receive excise products under duty suspension. Prior to the shipment of the products, the deposit of a guarantee covering the involved duties and taxes is required.
The shipping of excise products under duty suspension can only be made to a registered consignee (even temporary) or an authorized warehousekeeper.
The table below summarizes the operations authorized according to the authorization requested:
Registered Consignor |
Registered Consignee |
Authorized warehouse keeper |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Production* |
no |
no |
yes |
Processing* |
no |
no |
yes |
Shipment* |
yes |
no |
yes |
Receipt* |
no |
yes |
yes |
Release for consumption |
no |
yes |
yes |
*of products under excise duty suspension
All of these activities are subject to control by the Customs and Excise Administration.
Each of these operators obtains one or more excise numbers that are required for the circulation of the excise products under duty suspension. Its validity may be verified on the website of the European Commission.
All deliveries of excise goods under duty suspension between two authorized operators are declared using the European EMCS system.
Several excise suspensive arrangements may follow one another until payment of the excise duties in the country of consumption as illustrated on the following diagram.
It should be noted that a company not established in Luxembourg that must pay excise duties there must moreover appoint a fiscal representative for excise matters following the procedure specified by the Customs and Excise Administration.
Circulation of "duty paid" products
Products may circulate in the EU when the excise duties have already been paid in the country of departure. These products have a "duty paid" status and must follow a special procedure.
They must circulate accompanied by a Simplified Accompanying Document (SAD), established on paper outside of the EMCS eCustoms system. To allow circulation of "duty paid" products, the operator must first guarantee the amount of excise duties due in the country of destination.
The excise duties owed are then paid again in the country of destination. Excise duties already paid in the country of departure may be reimbursed on request to the Customs Administration of the country of departure.