Source: European Parliament
The Commission is aware of the challenges the wine and spirits sector is currently facing.
Common EU rules and the EU Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) facilitates business-to-business transactions, which represent most intra-EU movements of excise goods.
Nonetheless, as recognised in the action plan for a fair and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy ( COM(2020) 312 final[1]) there is a need to also simplify and harmonise the rules currently applicable for the distance selling of alcoholic beverages (business-to-consumer). Economic operators incur costs of compliance related to national administrative procedures for the declaration and the payment of excise duty.
Any initiative in this area must strike a balance between the simplification of current rules for distance selling and fraud prevention.
The Commission has published a study conducted by a contractor on this issue[2] and supports discussions among interested Member States based on the Fiscalis programme. In the context of ongoing discussions with experts from a number of Member States, the development of a tool inspired from the Value-added tax (VAT) One-Stop-shop for the payment of excise duty is indeed being considered.