Bahrain and Qatar to Start Using Tax Stamps for First Time

Bahrain’s National Bureau for Revenue (NBR) and the General Tax Authority (GTA) of Qatar have recently announced the signature of new contracts with De La Rue for the provision of national digital tax stamp and traceability programmes on a number of excise goods including cigarettes, shisha and a variety of beverage types. This is the first time that these two countries will be using a digital tax stamp solution.

This move follows the common excise tax agreement, reached in 2016, between the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely: The United Arab Emirates, The Kingdoms of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, The Sultanate of Oman, and The States of Qatar and Kuwait. The agreement calls for the GCC’s Ministerial Committee to ‘determine the excise goods upon which special marks/stamps shall be placed, and the rules necessary for that purpose in the GCC territory’.

The agreement was drawn up at a time when the majority of Middle Eastern countries were not using tax stamps, either because there was no legislation for taxes, or it was not common practice to levy excise duties. This situation changed, however, when the six GCC countries began intensifying efforts to implement new sources of tax revenue in the wake of rapidly declining oil prices, with these including the introduction of VAT, as well as excise tax on tobacco and sugary drinks.