Excise guidelines for duty free shops

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About this guide

This guide is intended to be a reference tool for duty free shops to assist operators to meet their Excise obligations. It contains information about the excise system and how it applies to duty free shops.

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

Throughout this guide you will find important notes (look for the

 symbol) that will help you with key information you should note.

You will also find 'more information' boxes (look for the

 symbol) that will show any further steps you may need to take or supplementary information you may need to refer to.

The 'danger' notes (look for the

 symbol) give prominence to information that is critical to compliance. They suggest the highest level of urgency or facts you must comply with.

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

You can contact us as follows:

• phone 1300 137 295
• fax (03) 9285 1168 , or
• write to us at
  
  Australian Taxation Office
  
  PO Box 3001
  
  PENRITH NSW 2740

We will ordinarily respond to written information requests within 28 days. If we cannot respond within 28 days, we will contact you within 14 days to obtain more information or negotiate an extended response date.

TERMS WE USE

When we say you , we mean you as a duty free shop operator who is either registered or wishes to register for excise.

Some technical terms used in this guide may be new to you - some are defined in the legislation, others are not. They are shown in bold when first used and are explained at the end of that chapter.

The terms CEO, Collector, and Commissioner are all used in the legislation in reference to various officers. In most instances in this guide we have not used these specific terms and simply refer to 'us' or 'we'.

OUR COMMITMENT

The information in this publication is current at August 2008.

This publication is an expression of the Commissioner's opinion on the operation of the Excise Act 1901 and Excise Tariff Act 1921 as they relate to duty free shops (excise legislation). This publication is not legally or administratively binding on the Commissioner and is not a 'public ruling' for the purposes of Section 105-60 or Division 358 of Schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953 . The law does not provide for legally binding rulings on excise legislation.

Since we regularly revise our publications to take account of any changes to the law, you should make sure this edition is the latest. The easiest way to do this is by checking for a more recent version on our website at www.ato.gov.au