How to check the legality of an alcohol beverage

Alcohol products are quite popular among the counterfeiters. Law enforcement officers regularly find clandestine warehouses producing the counterfeit alcohol, details of which are sometimes appalling.

In addition, the turnover of illegal products in the market creates an unfair competition in relation to honest taxpayers and causes significant budget losses in the form of unpaid taxes.

So, how to check the legality of an alcohol beverage?

Legal alcohol products must have an excise tax mark. This confirms the excise tax payment, legality of import and sale in Ukraine.

The mark is a form of strict reporting and is protected by special security features that cannot be counterfeited. Of course, fraudsters do not stop trying to get around this obstacle and try to create fakes. Realizing this, the Tax service has developed a special electronic service that allows consumers to quickly check the brand’s legality and hence – the alcohol beverage.

Excise mark for alcohol beverages contains two barcodes. These are a two-dimensional rapid response barcode (QR code) and a linear barcode.

The barcode contains information about series and brand number.

QR-code is information about the series and number of mark, requisites of the mark’s buyer: for legal entities it is a code according to the Unified state register code of enterprises and organizations of Ukraine; for individuals – entrepreneurs is a code that reflects the registration number of the taxpayer’s account card, as well as a link to the website.

Using the QR-code the consumers can quickly detect counterfeits using their gadgets. To do this, a program that reads QR-codes must be installed on mobile device. For example, such applications can be found and downloaded for free using GooglePlay or AppStore.

Scanning the QR-code by mobile device, which is applied to the excise tax mark, the transition to the web resource https://cabinet.tax.gov.ua/registers/mark is performed for instant verification of the mark. That is, in a few seconds the payer will receive information about a business entity that received the excise tax mark and date of its issuance.

If it is impossible to read the QR-code for subjective reasons (broken code, jammed, etc.) or in the absence of necessary gadget’s functionality, the information can be checked manually.

To do this, the one needs to enter the open part of the Electronic Cabinet at www.cabinet.tax.gov.ua, or using the web portal of the State Tax Service (www.tax.gov.ua). There, in section “Registers”, select service “Excise mark search” and fill in the fields.

Thus, in the field “Type of brand” the one needs to select “New sample” for a brand that contains the QR code (ie a new sample introduced from 01.05.2020) or the appropriate type of brand designation for the old sample.

In the field “Mark series” to fill in a series consisting of combination of four capital letters of English alphabet.

In the field “Mark number” – the mark number which consists of six numbers.

And finally the “Search” button.

After this, the name of business entity and its Unified state register code, to which the specified unit of excise tax mark was issued, are highlighted.

For the users’ convenience and to facilitate filling in of the necessary requisites, after specifying the type of brand, the mark’s sample appears, which graphically shows the location of brand’s requisites that must be filled in for search.

If there is no information about business entity in the service, it may indicate a counterfeit product. In this case, the citizen can notify the Tax service in writing form to infozvit@tax.gov.ua or by phone 0800 501 007.

After consideration of such application, the State Tax Service conducts an appropriate audit. If the business entity violates the requirements for labeling alcohol beverages and tobacco products with excise tax marks, the financial sanctions prescribed in Part 2 Article 17 of the Law of Ukraine № 481 shall be applied to it. Violators face a fine of 200 percent of the product’s value but not less than 17 thousand UAH.

STS urges citizens to be careful and choose quality and legal consumption products.