New excise stamps introduced on alcohol and tobacco products

New excise stamps will be used on the national and imported alcohol and tobacco products from April 1, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a decision approved by the Government. Minister of Finance Veaceslav Negruta said the new excise stamps have special coloring, four visible security shields and a number of invisible protection elements. Currently, there are used excise stamps put into circulation on April 1, 2005 and January 1, 2007. “The issued stamps have not been used up, but counterfeits are more often identified. Thus, the demand for such stamps and, consequently, the revenues collected in the budget decreased. In 2009, the demand fell by 50% on 2005, from 63 million to 27.8 million stamps. This is not only the result of the economic crisis,” Veaceslav Negruta said. The excise stamps put into circulation in 2005 and 2007 may be used by this yearend in parallel with the new ones. The introduction of the new excise stamps will be coordinated by the state-run company Fiscservinform. The state marks used on exported alcohol and tobacco products were canceled by the Government last autumn.