Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum Calls For Papers

Work will soon begin on preparing the programme for the next Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum™, which will take place from 7-9 April 2025, in Cape Town, South Africa.

To this end, we have launched a call for papers, which we invite revenue authorities, solution providers, NGOs, academics and industry experts to respond to, by submitting a 200-word abstract on a subject of their choice.

To get the ball rolling, some topics and questions that are currently top of mind include:

• Regulations and initiatives like the EU’s digital product passport and its recently released recommendations for combatting counterfeiting seem to be steering us further and further away from using physical security features to authenticate products and documents. What should we, as an industry, be doing about this?
• Many countries that are party to the FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products had until September 2023 to implement secure track and trace systems on tobacco products. That date has now passed by, and still many parties have not implemented track and trace. Why is this and what more can we be doing to help them?
• We want to hear from inspectors in the field as to the challenges they face when investigating suspect products and operations. How do they authenticate products? What devices do they use and which security features do they prefer? Most of us assume smartphones are widely used by inspectors to read codes and authenticate products, but is this really the case?
• How are solution providers incorporating new, and potentially disruptive technologies like blockchain, IoT, AI, augmented reality, biometrics and drones into their offering?
• Another question for solution providers: how are you integrating your specific solutions for tax stamps and track and trace into a broader tax and customs administration platform?
• Other potential topics for a paper include:
• Success stories in terms of increased tax revenues, decreased illicit trade, increased seizures, or other outcomes, as a result of implementing tax stamp programmes.
• Market surveillance and point-of- sale monitoring programmes for helping enforcement authorities to identify
• illicit trade.
• Practical considerations for implementing tax stamp and traceability programmes.
• Tax stamp specification and tendering.
• Design and integration issues.
• Independent studies in illicit trade – what is currently available and where are the gaps?
• Trends in tax and customs administrations that are relevant to secure marking and traceability.