The along-awaited Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme comes into effect on April 1. The scheme imposes a legal duty on all retailers to check…
The along-awaited Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme comes into effect on April 1. The scheme imposes a legal duty on all retailers to check…
Wholesalers’ pleas were answered in George Osbourne’s autumn statement when he announced that the government will launch a registration scheme for alcohol wholesalers. The chancellor said it would be the largest package of measures to tackle tax avoidance, tax evasion, fraud and error so far this Parliament”. The Federation of Wholesale Distributors has spent years lobbying hard for a registration scheme to help stamp out…
Russian Standard Vodka beat Stella Artois and Carlsberg’s Somersby Cider to be crowned Drinks Brand of the Year at last night’s Federation of Wholesale Distributors Gold Medal Awards. Walkers Crisps topped the wholesalers’ vote as Grocery Brand of the Year and Britvic won gold for innovation for a Mountain Dew campaign. JW Filshill won the Wholesaler Service to Retail award, with judges praising its strong support…
Illicit wine sales could be as much as 11% of the market and may have lost HM Revenue & Customs as much as £700 million, a new report has revealed. It is the first time HMRC has estimated the wine tax gap and trade bodies have welcomed the figures, saying they could help fight fraud and boost sales for legitimate retailers. Overall the alcohol tax…
HMRC has launched a 10-week consultation to assess the costs, feasibility and effectiveness of launching a wholesaler registration scheme. Alcohol duty fraud costs British taxpayers £1.2 billion a year and HMRC is determined to toughen its stance. It seized 127,000 hl of counterfeit alcohol in a large-scale clampdown on the problem in 2012-13 but admits it needs to do more as the level of alcohol…
HM Revenue & Customs has stepped up its work with local councils to strip retailers who sell duty-defrauded and counterfeit alcohol of their licences. The department told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee that 30 shops in Brighton & Hove face losing their licences after a massive raid by police, Trading Standards and HMRC. Previous raids have targeted no more than a handful of…
The Federation of Wholesale Distributors has called on the drinks trade to work with HM Revenue & Customs to stamp out alcohol duty fraud. The body was responding to a report by the National Audit Office which said HMRC had made “no tangible progress” in tackling diversion fraud. The FWD has worked closely with the NAO during the two years it was preparing the report,…
