NETTING OF EXCISE GOODS IN BELGIUM

Source: Law concerning the general scheme regarding excise duties

Law of December 22, 2009, published on December 31, 2009

CHAPTER

2. - Liability, repayment, exemption from excise duties

Section 1. - Timing and place of liability

Art. 6.§ 1. The excise duties become due at the time of release for consumption in the country. The conditions regarding the liability and the applicable rate are those in force on the date of the release for consumption. § 2. "Release for consumption" means:

a) the removal, including irregular removal, of excise goods from an excise suspension arrangement;

The conditions for applying netting are:

• Reliable administration

• Netting can only occur when dealing with goods subject to the same excise rate.

• The Supreme Court has not ruled on the period over which offsetting may be applied. In practice, overages and shortages are determined during the inventory of the excise stock.

• Netting of excesses and shortages must therefore take place immediately after the inventories, regardless of the number of inventories.

• This implies that even companies that inventory their stock in parts (partial inventories) must offset the overages and shortages immediately after those partial inventories.

• Maintaining a separate list of overages and shortages after each partial inventory and then netting all overages and shortages once a year is not in accordance with this.

In practice, this means that the due excise amount is included in the weekly excise declaration in the case of a shortage.