E-Malt.com News article: UK: SABMiller against new duty stamps on beer bottles

Beer brands will have to undergo rebranding to accommodate new duty stamps on bottles, SABMiller group Indirect tax manager Keith Miller told the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group’s Beer Tax Fraud Inquiry.

Miller also pointed out that the technology used in tackling beer duty fraud has loopholes, Morning Advertiser reported earlier this week.

The technology proposed to track and trace requires people to call a number to make sure that the code on the bottle is correct and the duty has been paid for the product.

"If you have a duty-paid mark, there's no point having a duty-paid mark if no one actually checks that it is on the bottle," Miller added.

"Assuming you can mark each bottle, you would have to mark 5bn of the bottles in the UK supply chain, the next challenge is secondary packaging, so how do you check the product has been marked? You've got to potentially physically open the pack to check each bottle."


30 May, 2012