Press Release: Excise duties: Commission welcomes Council adoption of new rules to strengthen cooperation between tax authorities

The European Commission welcomed the adoption by the EU's Council of Finance Ministers of a Regulation to strengthen co-operation between Member States' tax authorities so as to combat fraud in the field of excise duties on alcohol, tobacco and energy products. The Regulation aims at ensuring more direct contacts between local tax offices of Member States, so as to speed up information flows; establish clearer and more binding rules on cooperation between Member States; require more automatic and spontaneous information exchange (as opposed to information exchange on request); and improve the systems in place for the transmission of information.