Excise guidelines for the tobacco industry

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What these Guidelines are about

Relying on these Guidelines

We are committed to providing you with accurate, consistent and clear information to help you understand your rights and entitlements and your obligations.

If you follow our information and it turns out to be incorrect, or it is misleading and you make a mistake as a result, we will take that into account when determining what action, if any, we should take.

Some of the information in these Guidelines applies to a specific financial year. This is clearly marked. Make sure you have the information for the right year before making decisions based on that information.

This guide is intended to be a reference tool for the tobacco industry to assist its members to meet their excise obligations. It contains information about the excise system and how it applies to tobacco products (being plant, seed and leaf) and excisable tobacco goods that are produced or manufactured in Australia.

The guide will provide you with a broad outline of excise law, our administration of the law and your compliance obligations - it does not cover every aspect of how excise law applies to every situation.

If this guide does not fully cover your circumstances, please seek help from us or a professional adviser.

You can contact us as follows:

• the Online Services for Business
• phone 1300 137 290
• email at tobacco@ato.gov.au , or
• write to us at

• Australian Taxation Office
• PO Box 3514
• ALBURY NSW 2640

Terms we use in these Guidelines

The technical terms used in these Guidelines are shown in bold when first used and are explained in Terms we use in these Guidelines . Some of these definitions are from the excise legislation, others are not.

When we say you in these Guidelines, we mean you as a member of the tobacco industry, who is either registered or wishes to register for excise.

When we say us or we in these Guidelines, we mean the terms CEO, Collector or Commissioner as used in the excise legislation to refer to various officers.

The information in this publication is current at December 2021.

© AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

You are free to copy, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute this material as you wish (but not in any way that suggests the ATO or the Commonwealth endorses you or any of your services or products).