The new excise movement and control system
A new electronic system designed to capture information relating to the movement of excise goods in duty suspension (alcohol, tobacco and oil products) within the EU will be launched in the UK and across all EU member states from 1 April 2010. The new system will be known as the Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) and will replace the current paper Administrative Accompanying Document (AAD).
The EMCS will connect 150,000 businesses across the 27 EU member states. Each member state is responsible for developing their own national system which will link to other states through a central system maintained by the European Commission.
HMRC have confirmed that the UK EMCS will be available from 1 April 2010 to receive and store details of movements consigned from other member states. However, the new sytem will be unavailable to UK users until 6 April 2010. This is due to an annual maintenance update which takes place to update code changes for the new financial year.
When the new system become available all messages relating to consignments received using the EMCS between 1 – 5 April 2010 will become visible in the EMCS inbox.
The registration and enrolment pages facility for EMCS is now open on the Government Gateway.
Detailed registration instructions can be found on HMRC’s website at www.hmrc.gov.uk/emcs/online-service-reg.htm