Law change for Romanian small plum brandy producers counterbalances fiscal staff shortage

Romanian individual producers of plum brandy will have to let the authorities know how much plum brandy they produce every year in their households, in order to pay the alcohol excises. The new rules change the previous system, in which authorities installed a seal on the equipment used for home making the plum brandy to regulate production. Currently, individuals have to register their equipment at the local customs authorities, which apply a seal on the equipment while it is not being used. When they want to use it, local producers have to send a written request to the authority to remove the seal for a certain period of time. After that period ends, the authority re-seals the equipment and calculates the due excise, depending on the production. The rules are set to change via a Government project, which shifts the responsibility to individual producers to declare and ask for their excise to be calculated. The change will have to counterbalance the lower staffing at the fiscal authorities. Individual producers will have to announce the authorities within three days of finishing production, and will have to pay the excise within 25 days. By law, plum and fruit brandies made by individuals in their households for their own consumption is limited to 50 liters a year with a 100% alcohol concentration, while the excises are half of the standard excise for ethanol, or EUR 500 per hectoliters of pure alcohol. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: cazandetuica.ro)